


Cold November and Forgotten Love

by Magin



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Flustered!Gamzee, Gen, M/M, Modern life AU, Multi, Ph.DKarkat who listens to others problems, Psychological Sort Of, Psychotic!Gamzee, Shadows - Freeform, green wearing dude who has a fairy, it's not Link, people just get drunk, the riinnnngggg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:06:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1565684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magin/pseuds/Magin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Tavros Nitram and you work in an office. This is of your normal life, but there are a few things that start to happen such as your bad dreams, a hospital visit, an unknown person and your's and your best friend's problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Where You Come Home to Your Apartment

**Author's Note:**

> So this is very realistic for the most part I think. I wrote this actually for Nanowrimo just last November, so just a few months ago. I will be adding more chapters as I edit this. Hope you enjoy it!

Prologue/Chapter 1: Where You Come Home to Your Apartment

 

==> Be Tavros

 

Your name is Tavros Nitram and you are just now walking back to your apartment. You have large curious brown eyes with a lanky yet wiry body frame for being 23. You, being a little over six foot two inches, are carefully yet almost awkwardly walking along the sloping sidewalk.  The apartment you live at is a bit out of the way in relation to town. This however doesn’t bother you at all; seeing’s to you are allowed to now sleep without loud cars and other nightly actions to wake you elsewhere. You have just returned from a bar with your friend Gamzee Makara and Karkat Vantas. You had a good time you suppose, but you don’t drink as much as Gamzee or Karkat does.

 

You pull your thick mat red-brown colored jacket closed as you feel a wisp of cold season-changing-fall-to-winter air make its way in to try and chill your bones. You’re very glad your friend Karkat gave this to you as a present last Christmas. It has come in great use during the winter months. You almost have made it to your apartment building now, you think as you have your head down slightly looking and smelling the decaying leaves on the sidewalk. You loved fall the most out of every season, even though you were born in the summer. You just wish it wasn’t as cold, but that’s only because Halloween was just two weeks ago, and since its November now, it’s really going to start getting colder.

 

As you make your way down to the apartment building you can see your breath as you breathe through your nose. You mentally remind yourself that you will need to get more long sleeves out of the back of your closet soon. That old rickety elevator never was a technology you trusted in your mind so you take the bland white stairs up to the second floor and find your room number 214 and unlock your door and walk in.

 

Of course you still have the stale coffee from this morning before work still in the coffee pot, which you’ll empty in a minute. As you start walking over to your neatly natural color décor of your living room section and sit down on the dark brown couch your phone starts vibrating in your jacket pocket. You pull it out and see that it is Gamzee calling so, you press answer and put the phone up to your ear and say hello.

 

“Hey Gamzee, what’s going on?”

 

The voice on the other side of the line has a lower, deeper tone of voice with a hint of constant “oh my god” epiphanies. This is though, from late high school and early college years, the fact that Gamzee did experiment with a few different drugs and music along with many, many clown rap and death core concerts.  This of course is behind him now and he is makes good pay as a graphic designer at a large company in town, but every once and a while a few odd words from those days might slip.

 

“Yo, brother. You seemed to have just left in some kind of hurry. Everything okay?” He asks with a slight sound of confusion to in his question.

 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just had to get home. I don’t really drink as much as you or Karkat do. You know this.” You reply sort of wondering why he asked this. He knows you don’t drink near as much as either of them, and you have to be back into the office tomorrow.

 

“Oh fuck…” There is his first slip in this conversation. It honestly almost makes you laugh because he still doesn’t realize what he sounds like or that he does it. “Yeah I always forget that mother fuck.” There is a sudden interference in the line.

 

“Hello?...Gamzee?” You ask wondering why it suddenly started to sound like white noise. Then it stops.

 

“Hey bro, sorry ‘bout that. Windy out here. Mind if I come over for a short bit?” He says the last piece of his question very fast.

 

“Yeah no problem, I’ll unlock the door now.” You say as you get up to unlock the door.

 

“Thanks, see you at a bit.”

 

And he hangs up after that. He has always been funny about saying goodbye even when you two were in high school.  You go and hang your jacket up on your coat hanger in the corner and you go to the kitchen and decide to clean out the coffee pot before you have any company and completely forget to. As you get the detergent and hot water ready and start scrubbing the pot an idea runs through your head. You hope Gamzee won’t stay all night as he is known to do. You both of have work tomorrow morning and you hate being sleepy on the job.

 

You are drying the coffee pot as you hear the front door just past the wall to your left and you hear lazy footsteps walk in the apartment and slowly close the door.

 

“Bro, here now! Hope you’re decent ‘cause I’m lookin’ for your ass!” He yells as you hear more footsteps moving toward the kitchen and you put the pot down in the coffee pot holder and turn around.

 

 You see the taller man standing in the entryway of the kitchen and living room. You wonder if he has grown yet again, despite being 25, because he seems to just about hit your six foot five inch ceilings. He has a lanky wiry body such as yourself, but his seems to work out more than you.  His curly full head of hair is back in a ponytail showing his tired long face and his weekend piercings since corporates don’t allow face piercings. You never minded his lip ring but you have always thought the Earl piercing he decided to get a few years back was a little much. His cool grey-blue eyes find your warm brown eyes and he then gives you a crooked smile. He’s never been the most socially elegant friend you’ve had.

 

“Well, I’ve just been cleaning a bit.” You say as he walks out of the hallway and crashes elegantly for his size on your couch and puts his feet up on your coffee table not thinking twice about it. He always made himself at home. Well, at least you didn’t have to tell him to like you had to tell Karkat on the few days he would come over.

 

“I have some shit to tell a motherfucker. Sit your chill ass down.” He says watching you sit on your loveseat before he continues with his story. He scratches his messy hair first and lets out a small puff of air from his mouth and twists his lip ring around in thought.

 

“Decided to stay longer at the bar with Karkat, but I forgot my key to my apartment. I went back and they up and weren’t motherfuckin’ there so I decided to come over here since it’s in walking distance. I asked Karkat if he could give me a spare he has. I just need somewhere to rest my head tonight.” He looks at you with his arms resting on the back of the couch. His eyes looking into yours once again.

 

“That’s fine with me, just be sure to get a copy of Karkat’s key once he gives it to you tomorrow.” You sigh out as you get up and go to the closet that has the spare blankets and pull one out and set it on the opposite side of the couch.

 

It’s not that you hate Gamzee; it’s nothing like that at all. He just has the weirdest ways of coming to someone’s house and staying, but that is just his quirk you suppose as your frown disappears.

 

Gamzee smiles as you set the blanket down and he turns his head back to stare at the turned off TV as if there is some important show on that you’re missing. He pauses a great while and as you get ready to leave the room he speaks.

 

You take your turn in speaking, and tell your odd friend that you have to work tomorrow and so does he so you shouldn’t be staying up very late. You of course said this in the sincerest manner possible and you were hoping you wouldn’t upset him. You hated upsetting people by asking them something you would like them to do.

 

He didn’t seem to take it badly at all. He just simply nodded. Later he says something in your direction.

 

“Thanks for helping a brother out.” His smile is crooked and it stretches larger as he speaks this and then he looks at his bare hand as if there was something there telling him to knock out. You walk down your hallway to your room as you hear him lock your front door and then go back to the couch, getting ready to go to sleep. You get ready for bed as well as you pull off your casual dress shirt and pants and pull on some pajamas and crawl into your bed. You never once turned the light on and that’s the way you wanted to keep it.

 

Nice, quiet and dark.

 

This was the best way to sleep for you, as you have found out for the past five or so years of your life. You were able to hear nothing at all as you laid your head down on your cold pillow and you closed your eyes to eternal darkness. You feel at peace and then you start to dream. You have a nightmare, you aren’t able to breathe no matter how hard you try and it doesn’t seem to get any better if you try to suck more air into your lungs.

 

Overwhelming pain fills your body as you try to look around but everything is black and red. You hear voices saying your name and even people crying somewhere around you. You then feel completely numb and there aren’t many other feelings and your breathing is no longer is painful. You relax and accept the warm numbness. As you feel this strange shock rise up in your body you awake with large eyes and sweat all over your body with a racing heart to boot.

 

You look around to make sure it was a nightmare before you start to calm yourself down and you grab your water bottle that you always keep on the nightstand. You never know when you might need water in the middle of the night and you swallow some down. You feel calmer as you can swallow since you wouldn’t be doing this if you were choking.  You set the water back down on your night stand and lay back down unto your soft feather plush pillow.

 

*Drip drip drop.*

 

Oh no. Not the water leak on the bedroom ceiling. You have told your landlord many times that he needed to get it fixed, every time he said that he would but he still hasn’t. You curse under your breath; it’s like beating a dead horse. Every time you try to talk to the man about this problem, it’s like he feels he is far too superior over you to have to worry about this disturbance.

 

You dismiss the thought as you decide to close your eyes once again and try to let sleep take over. You then hear light footsteps leading to your kitchen which at first give you a slight fright but then you remember that Gamzee was staying. You too dismiss this thought and you get ready to go to your restful sleep again.

 

*Drip drip drop.*

 

It really is going to be a long night with this noise. You sigh under your breath and pull one of your extra pillows over your head and clamp out the noise as best you can. It seems to work because after so long you don’t even realize you are in your room anymore. You are in a dream land with an important job and then it skips forward to a party in your office floor and there is cake. It seems to be for you so you smile and interact with your friends as you did last time at your birthday party. You will never forget how great it was to see Vriska there with all of your other coworkers.

 

You look at Vriska but she seems to be off into the corner watching as everything else goes on. You seem like you want to talk to her but before you can as is most dreams, it moves on to another one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Kudos/comments allow me to know that you like the story so I will continue it by them! Thanks! }:o)


	2. In Which You Go to Work and You Get A Text Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You get to work and you meet some of your coworkers and you seem to have someone who likes you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I feel Aradia is out of character here sorry if she is! I feel that this is too realistic sometimes. XD
> 
> Also, Red Pop Faygo.

Chapter 2: In Which You Go to Work and You Get A Text Message

 

You awake with groggy sleep in your eyes as you rub them with the back of your wrists and try to wake up as the sun shines through your thin material curtains. You sit on the edge of your bed with your soft socks still on your feet and you stretch up with your upper torso and your arms reaching for your ceiling. Your body seems to melt the sleep away a bit as you do this and you feel more comfortable in standing up.

 

You then make your way to your bathroom out of your bedroom (unfortunately, you really never have liked the layout of the apartment) and get ready to get your morning routine started. You turn on the bright white light as you close the door and as you put a hand on the faucet’s cold water knob you smell something.

 

 It smells like something is…burning?

 

You blink the rest of the tiredness away as you storm out of the bathroom with clenched fists down the hallway. You know there were only one other person with you in this apartment last night and no one now that you knew of. That person was your best friend, Gamzee Makara, however just because he was your best friend did not mean he could just come into your apartment while you are sleeping and go burn your entire apartment down.

 

You make your way into the kitchen to notice that he is bending down at the waist looking into the oven with a dark smoke just now starting to come out. You immediately go for your smoke detector and take the battery out. He must have heard you popping the battery out because as he is setting this glass casserole pan down he looks at you with a small sheepish grin as if to say, sorry I woke you up. You at this point are so upset because you weren’t woken up, but you were worried your house was going to be burned down because of his forgetful tendencies. But that also was partly your fault since you knew he had them.

 

“Gamzee would you please just get dressed, you know you can’t be late for work. You need to get your key and-“As you are walking toward the wiry lazy postured body you realize he has baked something in your glass ware that you didn’t ever imagine it being used for. “No, you cannot be using my things for drugs!” You angrily spit out as you stop in your tracks and point at the brownies.

 

“Whoa, motherfucker, chill brother. I was baking them for you.” He says with an air about him that told you he didn’t understand why you were upset.

 

Such headaches your friends give you. You didn’t have time for this. You just sighed angrily under your breath as you turned around and headed for your room to get your clothes for work. As you pull out one of the same cookie cutter white dress shirts and some black business pants and boxers you look at him as he is walking toward the couch.

 

“Don’t be late to work and take those brownies home with you. I do not eat or use drugs.” You say as you go into your bathroom, close the door and start your shower.

 

The warm water running down your back feels soothing as it washes away any anger you felt just a bit ago. You can’t help but feel slightly guilty of how you treated your friend back there. He didn’t deserve to practically be yelled at like that over something trivial like the brownies. You think it isn’t right, but you really need to work on your slight stubborn anger issues you say as a mental note. You wash out the remaining shampoo from your short brown hair and you turn the water off. Upon getting out and drying off you run a hand over the mirror and notice just how sick you look. It has to be because of the lack of sunlight and you have been wearing your heavy jacket now everywhere.

 

You get dressed and you pull on the stiff materials that are your shirt and pants and you button up the last button and you walk out of your bathroom. You look in the living room to see it empty and it is completely silent. Not that you aren’t used to this, you are, it’s just odd when someone was here who usually makes a lot of noise and then to just have them gone without a trace. You frown at this thought as you walk into your room, grab a tie, jacket, and briefcase. You set the briefcase on the couch when you see Gamzee was kind enough to put the blanket away and you notice your phone still sitting on the end table where you left it. The kitchen is empty too and the glassware is set up on the strainer. You go and brush your teeth and when you get back you grab your phone and see it has a text. You would look at it but you don’t have the time, as you notice the clock on your phone, to check right now. You haven’t been late to work and you aren’t going to start now.

 

***

 

You make your way to the elevator which you unfortunately have to take because there is maintenance being done on the stairs today. Go figure.  You step into the elevator to be around someone who you really didn’t mind at all to be honest. It was Equius, or so he always told you his name was this. He was taller than you but only by about an inch or two, so nothing large there. Large was an understatement on how well this man worked out however. You in fact almost felt terrified if you looked at his muscles, even when he was relaxing because of the size of them. He somehow was able to fit into business suit attire with a certain little flair of his own which you seemed to take notice of since you have a good eye for little details. You later talked to him after meeting him at a company get together and found out he was your neighbor across the hall in the apartment complex. This would have worried you on why you never met, but it became well found out that he is very quiet except for when spoken to.

 

Equius was a very smart man and he was very well revered in the company you worked for, even though many had trouble talking to him, you found it pretty easy to talk to him. You find out one day as you were leaving your apartment and he was as well that he is of the subculture Goth. He wore plain black shirts with heavier jackets with some studs and zippers and black shorts with pinstriped socks with combat boots. He seemed that he could be into the subculture Goth, so this didn’t come to too much of a shock to you when you saw him dressed as such that day.

 

Anyways, that is a bit of a tangent on your part. You are now back in the elevator and Equius presses the eighth floor button. He didn’t seem too surprised in his nicely pressed and tailored suit as you walk in. He must have seen the stairs were down. You look at him and smile as you wait for the doors to close. You aren’t too sure of what to say, but you notice his red and black stripped tie with the slight silver chain on it that seemed to stand out. As this is corporate Goth (as he told you a bit about the subculture) at a very minimum and of course in his own sly style. The elevator bings highly as it reaches the eighth floor and you let him exit first. You smell the sweat, new paper, and you hear the clicking from typing of some of your coworkers as you find your little cubicle which is very plain and bare. You sit down at your computer and start to boot the box up.

 

You decide to fix up the little mess you made yesterday, the small pile of paper with a few misplaced pens and pencils. As you finish this little chore your computer chimes in and it then is asking for a password to begin your work day. Just like that it then turns to be a normal boring day.

 

***

 

You get to your break hour after you have been typing nonstop on papers and inputting information into people’s records for the past six hours and you get a sandwich from the machine and you get some hot fresh coffee and sit down at the table next to your coworker and friend, Aradia Megido. She has her midnight black hair back in a bun and she is wearing her grey business attire and she has a sleepy look in her pale green eyes.  A frown reaches her face as she is looking down at her coffee that is enclosed in her small hands. You look at her and know something is obviously bothering her, but you aren’t sure what to say so, you open your sandwich box and start to eat it. You don’t have to say anything to her for she goes ahead and starts to talk.

 

“Hello, Tavros. You seem to be doing well. I haven’t been having the best day today.” She says as she pauses for you to say a reply while you swallow down the ham and cheese sandwich.

 

“What’s going on Aradia? Usually you have a bit more of a happy air if anything around you.” You frown slightly thinking of how you two have been friends and coworkers since you started working together. So it’s been about three years as you were still in college when you joined the company.

 

“Well, as you know. Vriska is treating everyone in the office this afternoon just about as well as everyone else. It never ceases to fail for her to be taking over the printer and taking your work off as her own. I really don’t know how no one has told anyone higher up yet. As for now and my non happy air, I am just trying to calm down. As I got back to my computer, I found out I now have to rewrite my entire manuscript that was meant for tomorrow’s meeting. It seemed to have been deleted “accidently” from my computer. Another long night, you know how it is.” She says all of this taking a few pauses to look at you with a sad glum look and takes a few sips of her coffee as you listen and finish your sandwich.

 

You at first couldn’t understand why this would be happening, but then you remember how much of a slacker and bitch, basically, Vriska is to everyone in the office.  You feel terrible for Aradia as you have had to write the manuscript of a meeting quite a few times while here, but no one has ever deleted the entire thing.

 

“Aradia, let me help you. I know that you have written many manuscripts for the meetings, but I have written more since that is more of my part in the corporation now when I’m not putting in other information of our clients.” You say this to her and she looks at you with a small smile. You’re glad you can at least lift up her mood a bit today. Well it means there will be another long day at the office again tonight. No more time can be wasted as you get up from your chair and throw away the shell which held you sandwich. “Just let me get caught up on my original work and I will be over on your side of the floor to help.”

 

You then move to the door as you look back at her one more time and you walk out of the room.

 

“Thank you Tav. It means a lot to me.” Aradia says to the empty room as she throws her cup away and follows suit in leaving the break room and returning to her cubicle.

 

***

 

You are now done with your work and you have just turned off your computer. Your fingers are so tired from typing so many repetitive words it isn’t even funny. Good thing you just bought yourself a new keyboard that curves with your hands otherwise you just might have carpel tunnel by now. You get out of your swivel chair and you make your way to Aradia’s cubicle on the other side of the floor. You just now notice how late it is in the evening. Everyone has gone home except for a few who either had extra work to get caught up with or were slacking off until the last minute.

 

You move swiftly in the half darkened floor, since your company decided it was best to lower most of the light bills by doing this after it started to get dark. You make your way over to her cubicle and knock promptly on the side so she can lift her head and acknowledge that you are free to help her now. One thing that strikes you as odd that you should have noticed (because there wasn’t any typing sounds going on) was that her computer is off. You frown and she just gives a frown back, but then it turns into a straight line. You find the second chair from a cubicle next to hers and sit down in it moving to her cubicle.

 

“Well, I ended up not having to do it because I remember that I left a backup on the USB. You know how I forget things I do sometimes. I’m sorry if you were waiting for a better time to see me. You didn’t have to wait.” She says turning around to you with a small sad smile playing on her lips. She looks in your dark brown eyes and they seem to be very tired just as you feel.

 

Just as you are about to reply your phone in your red brown jacket’s pocket in the crook of your arm vibrates twice, meaning you have a text message. You don’t bother to look at it even though Aradia eyes the spot where the noise comes from.

 

“It’s really no problem Aradia. I actually just now got done with everything so don’t feel like you were making me wait for anything, okay?” You smile at her and she looks back in your eyes with a smile on her face as well.

 

“Thank you so much Tav. I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She rubs her earlobe between her thumb and index finger looking off to the side.

 

You laugh as you start standing up and collecting your things. She looks up at you and as you are getting your jacket on and are getting ready to head out she speaks in a quieter tone. As if there was someone watching the two of you and she didn’t want them to hear.

 

“Are you…doing anything tonight?” She asks to your back.

 

You turn around and smile a small smile. You think for a second before answering. “No, I’m not actually.” You say as you button up your jacket thoughtfully. What was she getting at?

 

“I was wondering if you’d want to get a bite to eat tonight. I know you don’t normally…” Her voice trails off a bit trying to think of something to say without sounding mean of offensive.

 

She wasn’t bothering you at all with this question it’s just you really didn’t feel up to eating tonight. After you guys have finished all of your work you don’t feel like getting out unless it’s the weekend.  You smile at her as you look her in the eyes.

 

“I’m sorry; I go out with my friends on the weekend for the most part. How about this weekend we go and do something. You know how work makes you feel and we’ve been here for longer than expected.” You hope you don’t sound like you’re just making up excuses. You really would like to go out with Aradia sometime. She always has had a wonderful personality you thought and she had a beautiful air about her.

 

She looks at you, judging and weighing your answer for just a second before replying. “That sounds like a good idea. I will try to plan somewhere and I’ll let you know later this week and we can go from there.” She said with a slight bit of sadness but still had a very happy overlay in her words.

 

“Alright hehe you have a goodnight Aradia. See you bright and early tomorrow morning.” You say as you head for the doors to leave the floor and this building. This really shocked you that Aradia even said something like that to you. You would have expected her to go for someone more sophisticated or someone of her own league at least. She was very sophisticated and smart, you think as you press the button. You feel your face starting to get red from embarrassment as you enter the small elevator. You can’t wait to just get to your apartment and to get relaxing pajamas on. You’d make yourself a cup of warm homemade apple cider tea and then go to sleep.

 

You get down to the last floor and you walk outside to see each little snowflake (already, I mean come on weather, it’s only early November) start to make its way down to the cement. It melts instantly, but as you breathe out and look down at one that caught your eye, you see your breath and then you shiver realizing you’re pretty cold. You walk to the curb and wave for a taxi. You aren’t going to be waiting for the bus at the temperature it is now. You clench your hands into fists to try to keep some warmth with them as you stuff them into jacket pockets just before the taxi arrives. You open the door and sit down, the cabby watching you as you do.

 

“Where are you headed to?” He asks in a mellow voice as you close the door and you feel the warmth of the car’s heater blowing in your face and neck.

 

“Main street and South street please.” You tell him as you take your cold hands out of your pockets and buckle yourself in. You see the cabby nod as he pushes his fee button and takes off into the crowd. You don’t live to far at all from work but there was no way you were going to walk especially since you don’t have any winter attire on tonight.

 

You remember your phone went off as you remember feeling the rectangle against your hands as you slid them in your pockets. You take it out and slide the screen up to show that you have a new message in your messages tile. You go into your messages and the message is from Gamzee. It says, “Hey brother, sorry I didn’t say anything at you as I was leaving. Didn’t want to wake you.” Nothing more nothing less. You wonder why he said sorry. It really wasn’t any trouble and if he was thinking you were upset about the glass bake ware, he washed it so you shouldn’t be at all. In fact, you weren’t. You frown at the message unsure of what to really say, then you just text, “It’s alright. You didn’t wake me.” And you press the back arrow after sending the message and turn the screen off and you look up and notice you’re almost to your stop. This was expected as you know you aren’t too far from work at all.

 

The cab comes to a stop just a block from your apartment. The cabby is looking at you expectantly as you have forgotten to get your wallet out in advance, as you always do. You pull it out and get the money and hand it to him as you quickly take off your seatbelt and exit the cab, closing the door behind you, you stuff your hands in your pockets again keeping them from the cold and make your short trek back to your apartment building. The streetlights are completely out for some reason, but you don’t seem to mind too much. You really like how quiet it is and the darkness just makes for people not to find some reason to stare at you as you walk to your apartment. Although you don’t think people really stare at you, or at least you hope, but just in case. You haven’t ever really liked attention good or bad anyways.

 

Up the stairs you climb to the second story and as you get your keys you remember that you forgot your briefcase. It was sitting on your couch and you just forgot to pick it up because you were too busy daydreaming. You frown as you unlock the door and walk inside. The first thing you notice is this, it is very quiet, but this quiet seems too eerie for your apartment. You close the door lightly and clench your jaw as you position keys between knuckles and turn on your lamp. Everything seems to be normal here. There is that blasted briefcase you left.

 

There is a small noise in the kitchen as if something was fleeting and you jump. You then get in a ready position, muscles tensed and you walk toward your kitchen. You got this, just take it slow. You’ll get them. You keep saying to yourself as you walk into the kitchen and turn on the lights. There isn’t anyone here but that noise sure was fishy. You look around and don’t notice anything seemed to be out of place. You check the woodwork of the walls near the floor to look for a mouse hole but there is none. You look at your pantry and cabinets but find nothing. You even try the fridge but still nothing. Then you spot it.

 

A bottle of red pop Faygo.

 

It’s sitting on your counter near your toaster and coffee maker so it was a bit out of the way. Your whole body relaxes from its tense stance from earlier. You walk over to this corner and you pick up the bottle. No name, note, nothing. You know this is Gamzee’s. He must have left this here this morning you think and you set it down, but this time in your pantry with your water bottles and close the noisy pantry door. You’ll have to tell him either next time you text him or see him, whichever comes first, that he left that soda here. You walk out of the kitchen and turn the light out. You still wonder what the noise was but at least you don’t really find anything to be found as you check the rest of your apartment. You fix up your briefcase and phone and undress before getting your pajamas on and making your cider tea.

 

With warm drink in hand you head for your warm bedroom with the comfy bed and soft sheets and cover beckoning for your tired body. You set the cup down and run your fingers through your hair breathing out and getting into your bed. You’re glad today is over with, but you still have a long way to go. You take a sip of the marvelous tea and then you reach for your phone and turn it on. No new messages, but this doesn’t surprise you with the few close friends you have. Karkat only texts you when he can’t call, Aradia texts when she feels she isn’t bothering you and Gamzee doesn’t text many people very much. You press Gamzee’s name and you start typing in your text to him, “Gamzee, just wanted to let you know you left a Faygo bottle over here. You know I haven’t drunk soda for half a year now so I’ll give it back to you next time I see you.” You look at the text for a few seconds looking over it before sending it and laying it down again. You then finish off your tea, turn your alarm clock on, shut out the light and get all laid out and covered up. You go off to sleep as soon as your head hits the pillow.

 

Your roll over, but you don’t notice that your cell phone lights up at three or so in the morning with a text message.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos/comments are more than welcome and allow me to know if I should continue my works! <3


	3. In Which You Get A Demanding Text

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're at work and you start to feel really terrible but you make it through the day. There is a text from a demanding friend which you go to a bar with for said friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully Karkat isn't too out of character! Enjoy it!

Chapter 3 In Which You Get A Demanding Text

 

You awake in the morning just as every other time and you turn off your alarm clock just after the second ring. It always seems to wake you up fairly easily. You then reach for your water which is next to your empty mug from your tea last night and you take a gulp as you then stretch fully and stand up yanking the warm covers and sheets off of your body. You pick up your clothes for today and head for the shower.

 

The warm water as always seems to calm and soothe you and you wake up a bit more. Once you’re done washing your body and rinsing off the suds you walkout and dry off with a towel around your waist and you comb your short, wavy dark hair. You walk out of the bathroom and go into the kitchen and start all of the necessary items and goods to brew your morning Joe. You walk back into your room, put the towel in your dirty hamper, and put on your fresh stiff clothes. If only you would chose to dress like this every day, then it wouldn’t be such a chore to wear business attire. You let out a yawn a bit as you walk into the kitchen and grab your favorite coffee mug and pour you a cup and you start the toast. You take a long sip of the coffee before going back in your room, getting the brief case, shoes, tie, and thick jacket with gloves. You put them around the couch (this time you are sure you won’t miss your briefcase although you don’t really need it except for meetings) and just in time too.

 

Your toast is done, you lather it up with jelly and peanut butter because you love the two together on toasted bread and scarf that down. You finish with all of your other morning routines and the last thing you do is grab your phone and get all of your outer wear on before you leave. You lock the door and all of that nonsense and you get out and wait for the bus at the empty bus stop having your pass in hand. You board the bus and see some older people sleeping, kids on the bus as well, getting a way to school. You sit down by yourself in a free seat and you look out the window glad you don’t have to be in that cold any longer than you have to.

 

 You look at your phone and you notice you have a text. It’s from Gamzee and it reads, “Hey, I was the one that went and stayed up there messing with your chill and scaring the shit out of you that morning. I should be apologizing at you. The mirthful messiahs left a great motherfucking gift for my best rapping brother.” You smile at this remember when you were younger the two of you got into what you called “spitting sick fires” or “wicked rap offs” during your adolescent years. You’re glad he remembers this and it sure does bring back good and humorous memories of your long friendship.

 

Getting your head out of the clouds you make your way off the bus to work and up the elevator because the stairs (to your disdain) still aren’t fixed. This time you are alone in the elevator and you remember today is the meeting so people must have gotten to work a bit earlier than you. You still aren’t late for a meeting, even so you’re okay, but you remember because of the lack of the weight in your hand that you forgot your briefcase, again. You needed it for the meeting; however, because you have other materials in your cubicle you’ll be alright this time. You make your way through the floor’s doors and you grab our pad of paper and writing utensils and make your way into the meeting room. It seems to just be yourself, Equius, Aradia, and Vriska.

 

Suddenly your head starts to turn and you feel a bit dizzy and you grasp your pen as an anchor for this unexpected feeling. You must look pained because Vriska and Equius look at you with some type of worry and Aradia goes to your side. She is saying something but you can’t make any of it out. It flashes by quite fast. A sudden sharp pain in all directions of your body spread, air rushing past you and white light. Then it ends and you are shaking. You can hear now, but your skin feels numb and you feel physically numb with sweat pouring everywhere.

 

“Tav? Hey, can you hear me? Take it easy…Tav?” Aradia is whispering in your ear with real worry thick in her voice. You realize her hands are going for your arms.

 

“I-its…okay…uh..I just need to go to the…bathroom…” You say this as you jump up not wanting to be touched, afraid to be touched. You don’t look at her or anyone in the room and you quickly make your way to the bathroom. You can’t stop shaking and you stare at the sink trying to calm this weird sensation down. You get this feeling like you’re going to be sick, but instead your knees lock near each other and you grab the sink’s edge hoping to hold yourself up. You make yourself stand up and unlock your knees with great difficulty but you do it.

 

You make your way to the floor next to the door and sit down putting your hands over your face and breathe deeply. You have never felt like this and you aren’t sure what else to do but let it pass. As your eyes are closed though you see a fleeting image spark in your mind and then flicker out quite fast. It is you on your job’s floor with your friends around. Then you look at the birthday cake that they have brought in and then it darkens after a sense of true fear rises in you. You have no idea what to make of this. Why would you have such a strange image run through your head?

 

*Brr brr.*

 

A vibrating in your pants pocket sets you back into reality. You thought you turned your phone on silent but you probably didn’t tap the setting correctly. You pull it out of your pants pocket. You flip the screen up and tap the tile with you text messages and you see Karkat has texted you about a bar or something, which is usual for him. You’re surprised he didn’t try to call you, but maybe he remembers you work today so that’s why he didn’t. You press on his message as your hand shakes a bit still, but it isn’t as bad as before. “Let me know when you’re done with work. We’re going drinking tonight, the usual place.” Hell no. You are not going drinking. Not after that weird episode you just had back there. You frown and you press the dialogue square to type your reply and you type “No, I cannot go today. It wouldn’t be very good for me and I have work tomorrow morning.” You don’t send this however you just look at what you have typed out.

 

There is no way you can go drinking with this, this weird episodic day mare going on. It would either make it worse or when you went to sleep it would be worse. You don’t want to worry Karkat because you know he would if you said something like that so you send your message of just not wanting to go drinking. You breathe out, turn your cell phone off and stick it back in your pocket before standing up and walking out to the meeting room and taking your seat. No one seemed to pay much attention to your now as the meeting was about to begin. Aradia did however as she walked to the front and looked at you while she was explaining something about money shares.

 

***

 

As the meeting ends you stay back in the meeting room after everyone has left except you and Aradia. She walks over to you and sits down next to you. She asks, “Are you okay? You looked deathly ill earlier. I was really worried about you.”

 

“Yeah, I’ll be alright. I think I Just need to go home.” You look at her and try to smile the best you can as you start to feel a bit more like yourself.

 

“I would have told the boss either way, we don’t have to stay later as usual because of the meeting. Text me or call me if you need anything, okay?”

 

You really appreciate how nice she has been to you all of these years that you’ve known her. “I will. Thank you, Aradia.”

 

You get up and leave for your cubicle, feeling like some brainless creature and you grab your things and you then find yourself at the bus stop when you next realize where you are. You start your phone up and as soon as you do your phone goes off again. You lift the screen up showing a message from Karkat in response to yours: “The more perfect reason to go. Especially since you feel like shit. You’re going Tav and there is no way around this”. You sigh as you read this over a few times and you reply with, “Alright Karkat, I’m on the bus so I’ll be there in a few minutes.” You send this and then as soon as you do before your screen goes black it lights up with a new message.

 

“Yo, hope you’re feeling alright. Worried about you when you didn’t respond to my message.” Is what the text message from Gamzee said. It’s as if he almost knew you didn’t feel good and this made a small smile appear on your face. You thought you replied to him, but you suppose you didn’t and you reply, “I don’t feel the best, but I do remember you saying about the mirthful messiahs and the Faygo. That reminds me of our sick fires. Our wicked rap offs. Haha I almost miss those days.” You don’t even read over this text as you hit send. He doesn’t miss a beat on replying to you, “Hahahaha honk! I motherfucking remember that shit. You were tight with those mother fuckers too brother. Had a miracle hearing you rap those days. You busy tonight? Know you’ve be busy with work and all that.”

 

You smile a bit more at his honk which he hasn’t done in a long time either, that you can remember anyways. “Well, I am going drinking with Karkat, I’m quite surprise you don’t know about it. Or did he tell you and you just forgot?”

 

“I probably up and forget it all. You know how I work, you’ve been with me all these time chilling and shit. Damn, I will come at your guys tonight too. Be some motherfucking whimsical meeting for us. :o)”

 

“Uh yeah, I’ll let Karkat know when I get there. I’ll see you in a bit?” You reply but as you check your phone during the last couple of minutes before getting off the bus, he doesn’t reply.

 

You put your phone back in your jacket pocket as you notice after looking out the frosted window that you are almost to your stop. As you press the button for a stop the bus shows its destination and it starts to slow down. You get up out of the seat and make your way to the aisle and wait. You step out of the bus at this stop alone and you hear the loud rumble as the bus drives on behind you.

 

This bar seems to be run down from the outside as you always thought it did. What, with the grime, old hazed over windows and just the overall bad condition of the building. You walk up and see the red and blue neon sign stating “OPEN” and you pull on the handle and walk in. You are instantly flooded with a few noisy chatty people and bright lights near the bar and at the booths nearby. This was a run of the mill bar but, it had new chrome barstools new TV screens and even a new bar that just came in a few months ago. The outside did not at all convey the inside of the bar. Hence why there aren’t nearly as many people in here as one would think when they step in.

 

You notice Karkat right away sitting down at the bar slamming down two shots within a second of each other. He must have heard you over the few women that are gossiping loudly over something you didn’t quite catch because he immediately turned your direction and gave them this god awful drunk glare before looking back at you and giving a tiny smile. He was a few years older than you, with light skin, hazel eyes and dark wavy black hair that made its way over his forehead and over his ears. He had dark circles around his green brown eyes and his skin seemed a bit paler than you normally remember. His fit body seemed to be over relaxed as he is sitting drunkenly looking at you.

 

That intense stare, but the cool small smile that played his lips. Oh boy, his eyes and expression show it all. He had a rough day today. You brace yourself as you sit down and yupp, you called it alright, as soon as you do he just lets it out.

 

“Would you fucking believe fvhat that man’s wife had me do?? No let me tell you guys. Fucking had me say, ‘Oh no…you’re….*hic* hoapply married. You wouldn’t every cheeeat on him.’ She had me fucking say.” Karkat says as his long black sweatshirt flails with his arms in a very dramatic and drunken manner. You put your finger to your lips as you look at him and shoosh him so people would stop looking at you guys.

 

“Karkat, please. I understand it’s hard but you cannot be loud like this in a bar. We should rather do this out in your apartment or mine. Please calm down.” You say as you look around to make sure people have stopped looking at the two of you. The bartender laughs a bit as she wipes a bang out of her face and she pours you a glass of hard cider. You notice your good friend, the bartender, Kanaya seems to always have a smile on her face when she serves Karkat, Gamzee and yourself. Tonight she looks like she wants to talk to you, but because of the rant that Karkat is going into right now she knows it isn’t a good time. You take a drink of your cider before setting it down, letting the apple flavor soak in your mouth and feeling the slight burn of alcohol as it goes down your throat.

 

“Damnit Toras always with the light stuff you fucksnass. Get me another shot of whiskey Kanaya!” He practically yells at your mutual long term friend as he rubs his forehead before speaking. How could he have gotten so drunk with you just getting off? Then again you never question Karkat. He has probably been here at least half an hour so. He has just decided to get loud as he saw that he could just then as he yelled at his friend while he was getting too drunk to notice his volume.

 

“Long sotry short, that women is a biiggg fat bitchtits Travos. Never seen a more *hic* woman beofer.” He mutters out as he is string at the wood of the bar and then hears his drink being poured. He wraps his hand around it and shoots it back like water. He looks at you, his eyes seem to see something on you that you don’t seem to see and you feel like you’re being watched by a high Gamzee. Damn, the things you get yourself into with your friends.

 

“Karkat, I really think you should…lean a bit more closely to the bar.” The last few words come out fast as you set your empty glass down on the bar and grab for Karkat just as his body is falling backwards and you lift him to the bar and let him lean against it. “I really think that’s enough for tonight Karkat.” You say with some sadness in your voice. This man has helped many relationships and just overall problems in his career, but he drinks so heavily when things are bothering him.

 

You frown as you start to feel quite a buzz from your cider and you start to feel light. You put your arms on the bar and let the rest of the alcohol take it’s affect for the night. Karkat is on the bar resting his head and looking at you with what understanding he has and lips, “I’m sorry” in your direction. Now you frown a bit more and your eyes must give everything away because as soon as you frown, in one sudden drunken movement Karkat has his arms around you in a sloppy drunk hug and he whispers small sorry’s in your shoulder. You hold him as he starts to breathe a bit slower and you both break off the hug. He looks embarrassed at his “weakness” or so he would call it and he sets his chin on his now folded arms on the bar and stares off into space.

 

“Karkat, don’t worry about it. You should vent to someone and like I have always said, I’ll listen.” You say as you turn toward the bar and set you head in your hand looking at the different bottles of alcohol lining the collection behind the bar.

 

Karkat doesn’t say anything for a minute but you don’t mind the quiet air of him. Sometimes you feel you just need someone to be there with you too even if you don’t feel like shit.

 

***

 

“Thanks. I don’t know what I’d do without you or Gamzee.” He mutters out and he now has another shot in one hand is leaning against the bar but is sitting up more than before. He turns the little cup around as he looks at the contents and he shoves it your way. He clears his throat and continues without slurring his speech just as before somehow.

 

“I feel like I should stop drinking now heh. Also that wife, after her husband left the room, and she tried to seduce me right there in my freaking counseling room. I told the guy when he got back after I made her leave. Shit, I feel like I’m the asshat for doing that.” He looks at you just briefly to make sure you’re listening and looks back at the bar.

 

“Wow, how do I um…hmm…well I’m glad you at least told the guy. Now they won’t be together right? If she does something like that…” You trail off looking at him then looking at the whiskey shot sitting on the bar. You really aren’t sure what to say at this point.

 

“Yeah but I was supposed to be helping them. I do marriage counseling and all I did was fuck shit up!” he yells as he slams a fist on the bar and leaves it in that position looking at it. “Fuck me.”

 

Your eyes go wide as the whiskey shot nearly spills and at the fast and sudden movement of your friend.  “Well that is her fault for being…like that..I’m sure the husband appreciated you telling him. Maybe now he won’t go looking for counseling since it won’t help any further with that type of situation. You know, you do a good job and I don’t think anyone else would do any different in that situation.” You look at him and his wavy black hair going in a slightly messy manner on the top of his head. You gently place a hand on his shoulder and you feel he relaxes a bit at this.

 

“Drink the damn shot I gave you asshole.” Is all he says and you take your hand off of him and swallow and move your eyes to the shot. You didn’t care at all for whiskey by itself. He did give it you so you better comply. You grasp it and lift it up and rush it down your throat with a hearty swallow and place the glass down. Your eyes almost have tears overflow on your cheeks from the burning alcohol and you let out a small choke.

 

“D-damnit Karkat. Why?” Is all you muster out and swallow again as the burn starts to go away and then this warm feeling envelopes over your entire insides, up your lungs chest cavity and it actually feels quite refreshing.

 

Karkat chuckles at your response. “Like that shit?” He looks at you and his eyes are brighter. “So what has Tavros been up to? Just got off work a bit ago, right? Fucking sucks.” He looks at the shot that had whiskey in it and back at you as he waits for a reply.

 

You feel the warmth rise to your throat. “Yeah, it’s not bad. I did just get off work not long ago. I seem to be having these bad nightmares and day mares that aren’t making any sense.” You decide to leave it at that, Karkat does have a Ph.D. in Psychology, but it doesn’t mean you will let him talk to you about you problems, especially while drunk.

 

Karkat looks at you and sits up straight and there is a flicker in his eyes as he seems to be getting more professional and taking this very seriously. Just as he opens his mouth and begins to speak you put up your hand in interjection. It says, “No, don’t be doing that stuff to me tonight while you’re drunk and I am getting there. Rest.” And he doesn’t seem to take offense to it as his posture relaxes a bit and he leans back against the bar.

 

 “So then, what do you want to talk about since right now you don’t want to talk about your problems and have my badass help?” he asks as ploy type of smile goes upon his face.

 

“I hope you truly aren’t angry with me; I think we just need to enjoy each other’s company. I did want to ask, were you able to give Gamzee his spare key so he could get into his apartment?” You ask as the two of you look at each other over your hunched shoulders.

 

“Oh yeah, I gave it to him and gave him the rant I always give him about losing his shit. I feel like we are the only two that have matured over the years and that he’s still behind. Fuck, I feel so much older now.” He sighs and then rubs his forehead as you could tell there was some form of headache developing where he rubs.

 

“Sorry I don’t have any medicine for you.” You say as you notice his pained face that he just smirks off and shrugs. You jacket pocket vibrates and you pull out your phone and go into the text message tile. Gamzee texted you, his messages reads, “Yo motherfucker.” He really needs to try to work on his language a bit, you think sarcastically. You reply, “Hey, how are you?” and put your cell phone back in your pocket.

 

You chuckle at Karkat as he growls under his breath. “You really should take it easy on the alcohol Karkat.” He just glances at you and a nasty look appears on his face but then it quickly turns into a wince.

 

***

 

You two reminisce a bit on the past in college and when you first met. You laugh as he then orders two more shots and slides one over to you. You look at it of course for a bit then take it down with him and you two laugh after your small choke from it. It most have been at least two more hours of talking about college and a bit about how much work sucks before Karkat speaks of something else.

 

“Fuck.” He says under his breath. “I will have to motherfucking go home and rest this one off. Sorry Tavros, I can’t stay any longer. I swear we will have a true drinking session next time along with a look at your problems.” He then claps a hand on your shoulder as he stands up slowly and tries to catch his ground. You immediately stand up to help him, but you didn’t notice that the ground started to spin itself. You forgot all about that second shot and it almost topples you over but you stop and breathe clenching the edge of the bar for support.

 

 “I’ll show you to a taxi Karkat…” You mutter as you feel uneasy.

 

“Alright.” He starts walking out of the bar and you follow suit. Blinking seems to make it worse so you try not to, but your eyes are so dry that you can’t help but blink quite a bit. The two of you somehow make it to the cold outside and you wave a taxi. As it shows up you smile at Karkat and he says he’ll call you tomorrow to make sure you are alive as he nods his head to you and gets in the cab. You are left standing there in the cold. You are now going to walk over to the bar and let the alcohol run its course before you walk to your apartment. You don’t want to get fined for public intoxication.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments/Kudos allow me to know if I should continue a story so please let me know and thank you! :o)


	4. Where You Sit at the Bar and You’re Told Something of Importance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You continue to stay at the bar and you talk to another friend of yours. More drinking ensues along with awkwardness of a sort and reminiscing/flashbacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah yes and adios motherfucker drinks do exist. xD

Chapter 4: Where You Sit at the Bar and You’re Told Something of Importance

 

You make your way back into the bar and you sit down where you were before and you look at Kanaya who is smiling at you and walks to the other side to help someone else. You noticed there is a glass of water where Karkat was and you assume it is for you and you nurse this water while trying to get sober and see straight. The cold water feels good in your hands and your throat as you start to warm up a bit in the bar. You must not have noticed before because of the crazy shenanigans Karkat and you went on while getting (semi for you) drunk. You then see Kanaya as she walks over to you, her short black hair in a nice style for her with her nicely shaped face and cool green eyes looking at you.

 

“How are you doing tonight Tavros?” She asks smiling now that most of her customers have had their drinks and will be okay for a few minutes, she decides to talk to you.

 

“Good just trying to sober up so I can go home. Karkat…” You laugh before continuing, “..I can’t believe how roaring drunk he got tonight. I have seen him pissed and drunk but it’s only the third time I’ve seen that combination together. You still talk to him too don’t you?”

 

“Of course, we even talk outside of the bar occasionally, not as much as during college but we still do. Yes, I have seen him only one other time like the state he was in tonight. Good thing he has a friend like you.” She smiles kindly and wipes off a spot on a few glasses while listening to you.

 

“Yes, I am glad he has a few good friends.”

 

“Speaking of, where is Gamzee? He is always with the two of you.”

 

“I honestly don’t know. He has gotten a hold of me a few times but besides that I haven’t heard much from him.”

 

“Hmm..well I don’t talk to him, but he seems to be preoccupied with…things quite often. In my opinion that is.”

 

“Oh no, you’ve got it right Kanaya. He has always been like that since high school though; so Karkat and I are just used to it. I hope he’s okay at least.” You look at your water and take a gulp before setting it down and you look back at her.

 

 “Just make sure if Karkat comes in tomorrow that he doesn’t get that drunk if he seems angry. I don’t know what he would do if Gamzee or I wasn’t there to calm him down. I don’t want to think about what he would say to someone actually…” You trail off as you try not to think of Karkat getting beaten up by someone who took his crabbiness the wrong way.

 

“I won’t, don’t worry Tavros. Just feel better, alright?” She smiles at you before going off to work and get other’s drink orders.

 

You smile back at the ghost that was left far long ago and you start to feel a bit colder so, you decide to put your jacket on. You feel that even though you may have only been here about an hour if that is enough (after Karkat left), and you start to head out the door. There is just one problem, after you start to open it before it is even fully open you feel a force of weight on the other side. This is keeping it from opening up easily and you realize you have hit someone with the door.

 

You slide out of the door way’s crack and you feel so bad for hitting someone with this door. It isn’t that light and it was sure to at least leave some kind of bruise. You hear moaning on the ground and you see a bit of red on the ground from the light post on the corner of the street. You feel so bad and you bend down to the person now on their ass and right as you are getting ready to help them out you feel something in your stomach. You know this person.

 

It’s Gamzee with his piercings and all, but his hair is out of his pony tail and is all over the place. He has blood running from his Earl piercing and his lip piercing but just slightly now. Not too much later, then you notice he’s started up again. With the oil paint on his face, the dark grey and white in clown type shapes on his long face. The dark grey is around his eyes, mouth and a few other shapes on his face while the white takes up the rest of the space. He has his large hands over his forehead and is cursing under his breath slightly as his smoke curls out of his lips in the cold air.

 

“Gamzee…Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” You say as you look down at him unsure of what to do to help him or if you should try to help him up.

 

He hears your voice and stops cursing. He chuckles a bit and he moves his face so his blue grey eyes can meet yours and you can see the side of his face better in the light now. He removes his hand and runs it through his messy curly hair that somehow is defying gravity and curling and sticking up everywhere.

 

“Fuck brother, I didn’t expect you to throw a door in my face hahaha. Don’t worry about it.” He says smoothly as he rubs his forehead a bit and then lowers his hands to the ground so he can lift himself up. “Motherfucking miracle I found you here. Shiiitt.” He looks down at you and wipes his hand on his pants causing white makeup to smear. You stand up and meet him locking eyes and smiling a bit at his happy disposition.

 

“Yeah, I was, um, actually just about to leave though. Karkat has already left and I drank a bit too much tonight and I don’t want to stay out too much later.” You say still feeling bad, but your best friends crooked grin tells you not to worry about it.

 

“Well, we haven’t really gotten to drink one on one brother, so come on.” He wraps an arm around your shoulders in an iron grip as he leads you back in the bar exactly where you were with Karkat earlier. He gracefully as always, plops his large figure down on the stool and looks at you as you sit down next to him tentatively.

 

“I really can’t stay Gam…I have to get home soon. I have work tomorrow morning and I know you do too.”

 

“Brother, this room is full of wicked mirth, don’t you feel it? Stay with me a bit while we drink and have some fucking fun.” He smiles at you again. “Two adios motherfuckers.” He says to Kanaya and you are wondering if he just let the “motherfucker” slip in on accident. You aren’t sure, but you wait while the drinks are being prepared.

 

“Okay heh. So how have you been? You didn’t reply so I figured you were busy or something.” You say as you look at him and his face a bit better in this light. He seems like he’s had something before he got to the bar as his eyes seem to show restlessness and his pupils are quite large.

 

“Oh I’m up and mother fucking sorry. I spacing out and didn’t realized that you even repied to my message I sent motherfucker. I’m sorry.” He says as he looks at you with a true look of sorrow and some other emotion in eyes. You dismiss what he could have had or taken before getting here, as is per norm for him and continue.

 

“It’s okay, I just wasn’t sure if you were okay. Were you able to get into your apartment alright?”

  
“Yeah, everything was tight with that situation.”

 

He puts his arm over your shoulders again and he grabs his drink that has just been put down and he lifts it up for you to grab yours and clink it to his. You grab it up, clink glasses and drink a few gulps down. There are so many different flavors that run you’re your throat, rum, vodka and a few other tastes you can’t really distinguish. You blink as you get the full effects of the drink after you second big gulp of the drink. The entire time his arm is still over your shoulders, which you don’t really have a problem with. Then you notice he is looking at you in a certain way and then you finally knock back the glass.

 

A chuckle purrs out of his chest as he had already finished his a while ago. He now notices his arm is over your shoulders and he puts it away and places it on the table. He shoves the glass up saying he wants another and he slides yours up as well once you set it down.

 

“Shit…remembers those days when we would motherfucking rap sick beats all day and not give a shit if we sucked?” He laughs at this memory as you nod and laugh with him. Your mind is already starting to swim and you feel very talkative so you start to talk about how boring work has gotten and that you have never drank this much. You don’t want to get up in case you end up falling out of your chair just as Karkat almost did you tell him and the two of you laugh at this as well as you drink down some more alcohol.

 

“And the time…*hic* in Englishss class where you truly were into that clown horror corer rap and would spit those sick…firens every day? I still had so much trouble keepign up with your, uh, amazing flows.” You say as you smirk from the great memories you two made together. He was your best friend when you really didn’t have anyone to talk to besides Karkat. He was always around for you when you were feeling down and you were always there for him.

 

A lot of people in school didn’t like Gamzee just because he would act out or because he was just too mellow to care what they thought. Even though his family was one of the wealthiest in the state, he didn’t care. He wouldn’t have anything to do with making fun of the less fortunate and in fact, when you two became friends a lot of the other wealthier kids stopped talking to him altogether. He said at that time he would rather have a friend like you than those who made fun of people. It was all over things he found to be quite whimsical to be making fun of others for, he told you as you thought he was really upset about the whole ordeal with the other rich kids.

 

You then are taken out of the wonderful past of your friendship and are pushed back into your drunken present self. You are at the bar that has become increasingly louder with your best friend you were just talking with is still beside you.

 

You could feel that you were really starting to feel numb in your face as you started to poke it and this made Gam laugh as he gulped down the rest of his third glass while you were still on the beginnings of your second glass. Your hands lands up on the bar, slapping down against it pretty hard landing next to Gamzee’s glass and he looks at it for a few seconds before looking at you.

 

“Yo my miraculous brother.” You look at him and you can’t help but smile widely at his crooked grin that he always gave you. It always lightened up your mood and since you were already in a great mood it just made it ten times greater. “You feels okay? Maybe a bit of white shit going on at your face, but it ain’t no face paint.” He looks around your face and he meets your eyes. His eyes are intense and the high he had earlier seems to have faded a bit as far as you were able to tell. He was focusing on you without such a glassy expression that he normally wore.

 

“Oh yeah I’m doing fine. Just…*hic* wrif as rain.” You chuckle a little at his curiosity. You for some reason find it very funny.

 

He smiles at you as you say this and then he gets this spark in his eyes with the sudden understanding of it all. “Shit, you remember at the time we motherfucking became wicked legit?” He asks you with excitement in his voice. You nod somewhat and you take your other hand and lean your chin on it. He chuckles and then begins.

 

When both of you were younger you just had gotten to know each other a bit, maybe for about a month if that during this time. Well Gamzee’s dad wasn’t always the nicest man; he had huge rages and would throw things and curse everywhere. Well what started him off this time was Gamzee’s older brother ran away from home and he hadn’t been seen for a good four days or so. Gamzee’s dad was throwing shit everywhere and demanding everyone to look harder for his son.

 

By the time this reached a week Gamzee’s dad had enough of it all. He then called the cops early in the morning and ordered them to look everywhere but they came back to no avail. Gamzee got home from school still high as a kite from that afternoon’s bowl during lunch and his dad slapped him. Hard. Across the face and yelled at him telling him he was worthless and he was a piece of shit that shouldn’t have even lived after his mother died. His dad then starts to throw things at him. Anything at him. Gamzee is really starting to get scared now and he is telling his dad to calm down but he won’t listen. Gam then saw something flash by him quickly. He got a bad cut from a knife that was thrown across the room to him and that’s when he decided to book it.

 

Gamzee ran out of his house as fast as he could while he was holding his bleeding shoulder as he ran. He noticed it was raining extremely hard and he could hardly see where he was going. He was afraid, more so than he ever was in his entire life and getting off of his high wasn’t helping. He darted through people’s yards and was breathing hard as he was looking behind him every once and a while to make sure he his dad wasn’t following him. Gamzee didn’t know where he was at all so he stopped and stood under a streetlight and started to cry a little. He remembers his dad calling him a stupid motherfucker that won’t amount to anything ever. That didn’t bother him as much as the knife cut and the fact that his dad truly only cared about his older brother and basically wanted him dead. He had had enough of his dad and he wasn’t going back there until he calmed down and he felt safe enough to.

 

With no friends except Karkat and Tavros, he ran for Karkat’s as fast as he could (it was the closest to his house after all). It was already getting very late and he hoped Karkat was still awake. He ran across the street and made it to a smaller nice humble household. He knocked on the door and was first greeted with silence so he knocked again. Someone who looked just like Karkat except they were taller and they were wearing pink pajamas with candy on them came out rubbing their eye and looking down at Gamzee. It took a minute to process what Gamzee looked like and then they were truly worried and just about closed the door before Gamzee let the word “Karkat” slip out of his mouth. The older looking Karkat boy frowned at Gamzee and said he wasn’t there tonight. He then said he could call the ambulance or police because he needed his wound looked at. Gamzee just smiled and said no as he walked off the porch leaving the older teen in disbelief.

 

Gamzee then only had one place left to try. Tavros’ and he knew that Tavros wasn’t very good friends with him at all, but he was at least nicer to him. He looked up at the sky and the rain still hadn’t let up. He started to make his way on the other side of town which luckily didn’t take long because their town was so small. Gamzee was very glad that he remembered where Tavros lived because his arm was starting to hurt while feeling this weird numb sensation at the same time. He walked up a hill and found Tavros’ house sitting on top. He walked up the long drive and got to Tavros’ window. He knocked with his good hand and waited.

 

 He waited a bit longer.

 

*drip drip* Went the blood coming from his cut. It almost matched perfectly with the rain and was almost inaudible.

 

Still nothing.

 

Just as he was about to turn, ready to go, he was met with a hand moving the curtains of the room and a small tired face looking at him. It seemed to be almost an exact repeat with the older looking Karkat teen. First tired, then a complete shock only he wasn’t met by a no, your friend is here. He moved to the back of the house where the door was closest to Tavros’ room and Tavros came out exclaiming he was so tired, but then he saw all of the blood and took Gamzee in immediately. That night Gamzee was taken care of by his friend whom he considered to always be his best mother fucking brother as he would get stitches, new clothes, warm food and even Tavros’ bed. He couldn’t ask for a better friend.

 

“I fucking remember that loud noise.” Gamzee explained when he finished the story and he looks at you to see if you remember it.

 

You do for the most part. Some of the words slipped past your still drunk ears as you were focusing on his hair trying to see how it was able to stand up like that without falling down. You are still were very drunk and you weren’t sure how to become of understanding anything or how you were going to get home like this. You seem to almost sway in your stool and you lock eyes with the blue grey and it is shining quite brightly in this bar of people.

 

Gamzee looks back at you and smiles his goofy smile and he chuckles a bit as he then moves a hand closer to your hand. His fingers are just an inch or so apart from yours. Or so you think. You are having a hard time judging most of anything right now. When you blink you try to concentrate on something to make it sharp but even that technique is no longer working for you. You look down at your arm and his hand and he does the same.

 

You both look up at the same time and you smile a small smile as you see one is forming on his lips. You are not sure why you are deciding to smile like that at all, but it seems the right time and place to be doing it. After all Gamzee is doing it as well.

 

He swallows and he says this, “You know, I have always remembered that shit. You have been so nice for whatever the motherfucking reason. Daammnn, I mean, at you I must seem like a fucking asshat.”

 

You frown at this statement. It wasn’t true at all. You really enjoyed Gamzee’s company. He has always been able to make you laugh no matter how you felt. You two got close in high school and you’re glad you did. You could not say this however, but he could tell that you didn’t feel the way he thought.

 

At your frown he looks at your lips for a few second then his grey blue eyes meet your brown eyes and he seems very happy but a bit nervous as he bites his bottom lip. He swallows hard and chuckles a bit nervously.

 

You look at him and you can’t figure out what to say with thoughts of random things and important things running through your head. You hiccup and then you feel dizzy as you close your eyes letting the darkness take over your tired body. You however hear him speak something in his gravely raspy voice next to you.

 

“I motherfucking like you, a lot. No other motherfucker maked my heart feel this shit of mirthful fast pumping.”

 

Then everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always please comment/kudos this work if you would like it to be continued or both as they let me know what to continue working on! }:)


	5. Be the Other Drunk Fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You go visit Tavros at the hospital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elevators are miraculous. Guess who this is in the perspective of. XD I DARE you.

Chapter 5 Be the Other Drunk Fool

 

==> Be Gamzee

 

You first have to remember everything that was going on as the ambulance was starting to leave and the police were questioning you. You feel a slight buzz from the three drinks you had, nothing too much past that. Damn it was so cold out tonight. The motherfucker must’ve been a hella embarrassed as you told him your true feelings for that little guy. He was your best brother more than Karkat even.

 

You space out trying to remember what was going on when the officer cleared his throat. Oh, right. He wanted some kind of information out of you but you really didn’t feel like talking to him. You give him your best smile and say, “He just motherfucking passed out yo.” The officer looks at you up and down and just nods as he doesn’t write anything down, rather he just leaves you to your own devices. You look over at the streetlight and shit that thing was bright as any other. You look back at your hands and you have a bit of blood on them. It was dried already and you didn’t bother it much. You know it came from something, hopefully not Tavros.

 

You really should get to seeing that motherfucker you think as you start walking the way toward the hospital. Your brain is swimming with a longing for some kind of high but you push it past you as you start walking faster in the snow. You wish you had a car or something instead of bumming a ride off of Karkat every day. Skateboards were cool in high school but now that you’re 25 you feel like you shouldn’t bother with em. Besides, walking was cool, hah quite literally. You smirk at your joke and you feel one of your overly sharp canine nick your bottom lip and you decide to suck on it as the wind blows through your polka dot pajama pants.

 

The only reason why you’re wearing pajamas in November is because you didn’t want to do laundry and you felt comfortable as fuck in these miraculous things. Where did anyone even get up the notion to make pants that were for night and morning and be so comfortable? You want to play with the snow and all of its mirthful activities it always brings other motherfuckers but you decide to keep walking for now.

 

The hospital is in your view now and you suck on your lip more, tasting the wonderful flavor of metallic shit running through your tongue and mouth.  You really hate hospitals; you had a bad experience with them when you were a kid. But that story is for another time. You start to drift away from the dreadful feeling and you focus on something else.

 

There is something about this weather that seems to alarm you, it’s really cold up near your up and head but your legs and feet seem to be warm. Must be those legit pajama pants you got on. As you walk into the hospital you notice others are looking at you and you smile even more at this because they must been wanting your pajama pants right now. So motherfucking warm. You should start wearing them every day all day.

 

You walk up to the front desk and give the lady one of your signature grins and ask where you friend Tavros is. She seems taken aback by your face paint or something on your face because she almost looks scared so you tone down the smile a bit which did not seem to help. She nonetheless told you that your brother was on the tenth floor so you make your way to the elevator and press the button as it lights up. You walk inside and press the number ten. You have always loved elevators, take people all day where ever they wanted to go without complaint and at awesome speeds for going up and down too. You chuckle at this and you put a mental note saying, tell Tavros about elevators and how they are so miraculous.

 

The elevator makes a binging type noise and you step out as the doors open. You notice the ceilings are lower than the ones on the first floor as your tall frame almost has to bend over so you don’t hit your head. People are flying by you with needles, bandages, and all kinds of other equipment in their arms. You feel so tall compared to them as their heads only go to about your shoulder. You walk your way over to another desk up in the center of all of the chaos that is moving around on this floor and you wait for someone to show up on the other side.

 

A girl with long flowing black hair and round glasses looks up at you as she takes her seat and her eyes adjust as she looks at you. You try to smile at her, but not so huge as you did last time but she doesn’t seem to really notice. Instead she is looking at your mouth.

 

“You might want to get that looked at before you go and visit a patient.” She says as she looks down at her paperwork she acquired from a male nurse that shuffled in and out in a hurry.

 

You feel your mouth with your tongue and realize that you were still bleeding from the nick you gave yourself. Only it must not have been just a small piece of shit otherwise it would have stopped by now. You suck on your lip for a few seconds.

 

“Yo, it’s wicked fine now. I’m looking for my best brother Tavros.” You say to her as you lazily run a hand through your hair and pull your trapped finger out of the mess.

 

“Yes, Tavros…” She says with a monotone voice. “Room 1040.” She explains to you pointing down the hall looking at your hair for a second before going back to her paperwork.

 

“Motherfucking thanks.” You say to her as you put a hand up to show your thanks and walk down the hallway. 1040 you say over and over in your head again. You hated that your memory could be so terrible but it was because of the things you experimented with in high school and you sort of regret it. Oh, that number 1040. Right it has to be close, you think as you notice the numbers on the doors are getting higher. You look at the number and get confused on what the number you were up and motherfucking looking at for. Until you finally reach room 1040 with its door is slightly ajar you see a bright machine light that catches you eye and you swiftnessity slide your body closer.

 

There is a machine that is beeping quite loudly and the lights are pretty low. You step closer just as you are about to have your hand on the door to push it open more to slip in, you hear something.  You hear the musical piece of a movie you know too well and that was all because of Tavros actually. It sounds like it’s just ending so you seemed to have come in at a good time. You push the door open a bit more and you see your best brother sitting up in his bed glued to the TV screen, unaware that you have even entered. You move over to the chair that is against the wall but is the closest place to sit by his bed at this moment.

 

The chair is nice and soft against your legs as you rest your tired feet for a bit. You look down at our purple converse, either, they, your feet were tired or they were chilled, you really couldn’t tell which. Just as you look up from your shoes you see Tavros is starting to look over at you and he looks unsure of what to do. He always looked like this when he didn’t know what to say and it was so motherfuckin cute. Or at least you thought he looked cute when he did it. You think away from this, you should ask him how this place is treating him.

 

“Hey how are you feeling?” You chuckle thinking about this right before it leaves your mouth. “You seemed to be too embarrassed by my saying so earlier up at the bar brother.”

 

He looks at you with a small smile on his face that he usually gives you when he stays quiet like now. You aren’t sure of what else to tell him really, and you wonder if he feels the same way. “Did you enjoy that motherfucking movie? I know you love that little miraculous flying scene.” Your eyes make their way to his large brown eyes that are looking at you and they brighten up a bit as you mention his favorite movie. Then he decides to speak.

 

“Yeah, I am um…really glad they have it. It’s just older and I was afraid they would not have it available anymore. I hope you weren’t too cold.” He says as he looks at you as you seemed to have made a bit of water on the tiled floor which you just now notice as you look down too. “The snow is sticking already?” He asks you as his entire body shift over a bit to look out the window on the other side of the room. “I can’t wait to go outside.” He sounds very hopeful and sounds like he wants to get out of here very soon.

  
You can’t blame him for wanting to leave a hospital as fast as he can. You get this small sensation in your head as you remember you were drug into one. It was too clean and the people seemed to be smiling too much. You were then put under sedation as you were screaming and kicking the door down trying to get out and go home.

 

There is this craving that rises up in your mouth and you really start wanting some kind of sustenance for this high you’ve been wanting. You look at Tavros who has now turned off the TV and is looking at you. Did he say something?

 

“Gam, you alright?” You hear this this time.

 

“Yeah, motherfuckin chill.” You say as you run a hand through your hair. What you wouldn’t do for something right now. Your hands start sweating and your mouth starts to water. You feel your heart start to race. Everything is back at the apartment. But then you look into his eyes and they calm you down almost immediately.

 

“Okay, you just look a little…worried of something.” His voice melts your craving away and you just smile lazily at him and shake your head a bit.

 

“Why don’t you tell me a bit about what the bitchtits happened to you at the bar.” You want to keep hearing him talk.

 

“I just…I remember hearing you say…something but after that I just blacked out and I don’t remember anything. The doctor said to stay the night while they get the results from the brain scan in the morning to make sure I don’t have any damage.” He explains as he runs his fingers across the bed sheets.

 

“Well I know this little brother will be just legit as fine.” You say, but he doesn’t remember what you said. You told him your feelings for him. You’ll just have to tell him again. It won’t be a problem. You just start to feel a little nervous now that you have no high or buzz form any type of alcohol and neither does he.

 

You go to speak but he cuts in before you. “Gam, why did you come all the way out here? I know you worry and really care about your friends, but you should be home now. You have work tomorrow and I don’t only because the hospital called me in.” His large brown eyes looking into your own with true questioning.

 

“I just up and wanted to make sure you was okay. I really worry about you. Damn, I know you up and don’t remember this shit, but I feel for you brother.” You say as you look down at your feet with a small smile on your face as you rub your forehead being careful not to smudge the makeup.

 

“Oh, well I really care about you too. You are my best mirthful brother after all eheheh.” He says with a nervous laugh at the words that came out of his mouth that weren’t normally part of his vocabulary. You feel the sudden urge to stand up over him and wrap your arms around him.

 

The shadows were returning to your gaze from the corners of your eyes. Why can’t they just leave you alone? You have to get your mind off of this fast before something happens again. You tug at a curly bang hanging in your face and you look up to meet Tavros’ gaze. It then all vanishes again and you feel fine and all of the shadows have waned down to nothingness.

 

You are debating on whether or not to tell him that you like him more than just a friend, because it seems this motherfuck does not understand what you meant earlier. You bit on your bottom lip again in thought and you run a hand over the soft pajama pants that are covering your long legs.

 

“Fuck, I mean, I really _like_ like you brother. You always be making me feel so happy when you are around.” You aren’t sure what else to say after that so you just close your mouth and wrestle your tongue as you think. You shift your gaze to the empty chair on the other side of you and you feel something in the air. You aren’t sure what it is. You wait in the silence with him for a few more seconds before he says anything.

 

“I uh…Gam…I’m not really sure how to go about this…” He says quietly you look at him as he speaks, you notice he is not looking at you but at his hands. So does he like you? He doesn’t have to be nervous.

 

“You don’t have to be up and nervous! I feel the same way!” You say louder as you feel a larger grin appear on your face. Your heart lifts to a higher stance than ever before and you put your hands on your knees as excitement fills within you. You are so happy he feels the same about you.

 

“I…umm….don’t reciprocate…the feelings….” He says even more quietly and still looking at his hands.

 

You heart drops along with all of the wonderful feelings you felt earlier today. You then let your smile disappear from your face as the ends of your lips, for only the second time in your life, fall down to a frown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos/Comments let me know that you enjoy this and I will add more chapters to this! }:)


	6. The Part In Which You Get  A Pet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are Karkat and you receive a pet from someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You keep being new characters! Isn't this exciting? I hope my Nepeta, Karkat, Kankri, and Sollux aren't too OOC. Enjoy!

Chapter 6: The Part In Which You Get A Pet

 

==> Be Karkat

 

Beep beep beep!

 

This is the first annoying thing that your ears get to hear in the morning. Goddamnit, you forgot to turn you alarm clock off before drunkenly landing in your bed and falling asleep. (Somehow you managed not to wake up your older brother). You press the button with a growl as you already feel the headache coming on. You flip over to your back and slowly sit up rubbing your forehead to try to numb the pain.

 

You get off your king sized bed and look at the shoes and clothes that were aimlessly strewn about earlier this morning as you almost trip over a shoe you make it to the bathroom and you don’t turn on the light. You turn the faucet on and splash cold water on your face and pull out pain relievers as you pop them in your mouth and swallow. You were a badass and didn’t need anything to chase medicine down with, although you didn’t feel like a badass at all right at the present moment.

 

You roll your eyes as you and sigh briefly as you know exactly what is going to happen as you walk out of your bedroom. You can already hear the TV on in the living room-dining room section of the two bedroom apartment spewing its stupid crap about the old caste system that hasn’t been used in well over twenty years.

 

A red sweatered older brother is in the kitchen fixing some eggs to go with his toast and his coffee is cooling off on the little table the two of you bought a little while back.

 

Good. He still hasn’t seen you yet. If you can just take his coffee and race back to your room you might be spared the…

 

*Swish swish*

 

Too late. He has already heard you and is walking towards you while his sweatered arms make an irritable sound to your hung-over ears. His glare staring at you and he closes eyes with a smug expression as he folds his arm before beginning.

 

“Karkat Vantas! Do you know how worried I was about you last night? I walked into the living room checking the clock every so often and I even call you.” He doesn’t miss a beat and in fact just takes in a small breath before continuing and doesn’t let you interject. “But then my prayers were answered as your drunken self walks into our apartment and wakes me up, of all things, I swear to gog Karkat. You need to learn some manners because most people wouldn’t take kindly to that at all, in fact, they would find it rather triggering to have a drunk roommate not answer their phone, and to add to that the fact that…”

 

You then really start to blur this essay of a rant out as you look at his mouth moving a hundred and fifty miles per hour as he goes. You are still shocked every time he does this to you but this is the first you have come home drunk because you usually let it sit for a bit and you usually aren’t in quite a mood as last. You soon realize your mouth is open as you tune back in and you close it and look at the coffee as the steam from it soon disappears and your older brother, the long winded one, Kankri has finally stopped.

 

“Okay, well I really think you should just get your coffee and eat your breakfast before it gets any colder.” You say with a slight hint of agitation and a gleam of objectionableness in your eyes as your lids are half closed by the huge waste of time he always seems to take of yours.

 

You then make your way to the kitchen which is decorated nicely what with the nice paying job you have at a firm and the nice job your brother has when he isn’t working with the community and church. You look at the magnetic crucifix on the fridge and one question runs through our mind. Actually two. Why? And this is the only one in the entire house besides the few in his room, so why the fridge? Does he think you won’t notice it? You certainly have.

 

You grumble under your breath as you open the well-stocked fridge door and you get out orange juice and pour yourself a glass from the drying dishware. You then look to see if he is on the couch or not and to your pleasant surprise he hasn’t not taken up residence so you sit down, turn off the program and enjoy the peace and quiet (that of which besides the clock ticking but it was very relaxing to you, so you didn’t mind it at all). You however made a bad decision as you could tell for when your brother came out in a huff and puff and starts ranting about his program being shut off (even though he wasn’t even watching it). You sigh and turn it back on not defying him or his ranting prowess.  Your friends wonder why you have a hard time venting about home. There would be so much to discuss you would have their ears bleeding before you were halfway done and by that time they would be sitting due to the fact their legs would fall asleep and buckle under them.

 

Kankri comes out of his room and shuts the door and he looks at you with a certain frown. What was he upset about this time? He then eyes your torso and you realize you haven’t been wearing shirt since you got up. Stupid hang over. You feel an embarrassing heat in your face as you set down your OJ and back track to your room pulling. You pull on a black sweater and pull your Cancer symbol necklace under it so the cool metal would freeze your warm skin, if just for a moment.

 

You go back into the living room area and you notice the TV is off and you feel like swearing and yelling at Kankri but you headache reminds you yelling would be painful. The door to his room is open and you can’t help but feel a pull towards it as he always kept it closed until. You take a few steps toward the mystifying room which you have yet to set foot into during your entire stay at the apartment but you are stopped by a voice.

 

“What are you doing Karkat?” Kankri asks with a tempting tone in his voice.

 

You have noticed that he has always looked so much like you, except for the fact that he was a bit older and seemed to forever hold a judging look. He is very intelligent with his wavy brown mop of hair on top of his head. His bright red sweater looks nice to you on most days but for today it gave you a worse headache pain so you don’t look at it. The reason why he is wearing that sweater is because he must remain celibate so he adjudicates to wear high-waisted pants. You never understood why he decided to go about it that way but you let that one slide after one of his good friends knitted a nice cozy sweater for the two of you. 

 

You look at him expectantly as you turn around and coolly say, “I was getting my orange juice. Why do you have to be so damned curious anyways?” (You’re one to be asking such things!).

 

“I have told you not to curse. It can easily anger people, have them remember bad feelings or emotions of the past, or even of things that just could have happened; you really need to watch what you say. I would get more into this, but, we have more pressing matter such as shopping for food since we are starting to run low, and don’t give me that look, and do not start with the frown Karkat. We are going and that is final. You need to put some of my needs before yours for once.” He says the last sentence as he walks into his room and closes the door behind him.

 

You finish off your juice and then set it down and get your sneakers on. You don’t feel like going anywhere in your present state but it would be good to get out in the cold. Maybe it would take this stupid fuckass headache away. It is not like you ever ask for these. They only come along when you least likely need them and that is what pisses you off the most. When you need or want to function normally they decide to come (and sometimes those headaches aren’t from your own body functions!).

 

In the front room then is your brother with his arms folded over his body as he looks at you with an empty look as if to say what took you so long? You dismiss the look, but sheesh was he crabby today. You slightly frown as he opens the door and walks down the hallway to the stairs and starts walking down them. You are left to lock the door and speed walk to keep up with his strides.

 

* * *

 

After a little while, Kankri is holding three bags full of groceries in which he for the most part had picked up from the store and you had to pay half of anyways. You are carrying two bags in each and you wonder why he wouldn’t let you pick out some more things of what you wanted since you were paying for half. Unfortunately the streets are really packed with people today, probably because it was the weekend and the noises from every little thing set your headache to a spiral of pain. You actually had to stop and grab hold of a subway railing as you two were making your way to the store just to study yourself as so many people went by with all of the noise not to mention your brother was ranting in your ears to hurry up.

 

You notice your best friend’s music store and without telling Kankri you walk in and you see he is following you in. Sollux is sitting down in a chair reading a guitar magazine and he looks up when the chime sounds as you walk in. He notices it’s you and a smile plays on his mouth until he sees your brother then it slowly disappears but it was a hilarious smile while it was still there.

 

“Whath the fuck are you thwo doing here?” He questions with a slight lisp playing in with his half soft half demanding voice. Sollux, who is the same age as you, has a wiry tall body frame, slightly taller than you, with symmetrically half spike style hair and analyzing mutant blue and red eyes.

 

“Wow, could you be any more of an asshat towards guests?” You half laugh at this and you look behind you to see Kankri is holding back his tongue but it won’t last for long. “I actually just wanted to see if you wanted to come over for some dinner tonight since we just got groceries, and the usual romcom.” You say the last part a bit quieter because it’s embarrassing for man to say that and you know your best friend doesn’t really care for them but he still watches them with you.

 

He looks at you up and down and notice you seem a bit out of it but doesn’t question it for now. Instead a few words slip out of his mouth as a customer comes in. “Yeah I’ll be there a bit around theven.” He gives a bit of a smile as he puts on his dual red and blue color sunglasses on as the sun starts to shine brightly. He then rethinks about it and hands them to you. “You need them more than I do KK.”

 

You grab them and put them on and nod to him as you leave the music store and Kankri starts to go off on some large essay, you mean, one sided conversation again about something similar to cursing in public. You however decide to tune it out again as you feel amazing with your newly acquired dual colored sunglasses on.

 

As the two of you make your way to your apartment with soft sweaters to keep your from the cold and the groceries in hand you find yourself being pulled into another shop. You immediately knew where you were as you heard chirping meowing and tiny barks along with other animal noise in the smaller room. You are greeted with a gloved hand that waves at you with a cute large green cat like eyes staring back at you. You smile a bit but you still seem pretty pissed about your headache and the rest of the earlier part of today.

 

“Nepeta!” you shout in surprise as you are dragged into a store. You hope that Kankri saw where you were going and continues on his way back to the apartment. You later feel that he does because he doesn’t come into the cute little pet store after you.

 

The trench coated friend speaks up with a slight cat purr escaping her mouth before she speaks. “Hello Karkat! I thought I’d bring you in. You seemed pawsitively upset.” She says as she blinks her large green eyes at you and then steps behind the counter resting her head on her hands looking at the other animals and back at you every so often.

 

You almost sigh heavily at the cat puns, they were cute but today you just weren’t feeling it. A bird caws as it sees you and then tries to fly away but it is met with the cage and it calms down again. You just let out a sigh and look at her

 

“Nice sunglasses” she says as she points to her face with her index finger as if she were wearing some. “Sollux give them to you? I hope you like the new store look. Feferi and I just redecorated and I furgured I would pounce on you and bring you in to see how you liked it.” She says in a happy tone as she fixes her blue cat cap and then she practically pounces over the counter and continues to show you the different animals. There was a puppy that you really had an eye liking to and she must have noticed because she let you hold it.

 

“Isn’t she just beautiful?” she chimes in with a smile as she watches you hold her. “How about I just let you keep her? No one has been eyeing her like you have.”

 

You look at the cute soft long haired small toy dog but you couldn’t keep her. First and foremost, Kankri would not let you have a pet even though they are permissible in your apartment complex and secondly you don’t really know how to take care of.

 

“I can’t Nepeta, it is a very nice gesture, but there isn’t any way I could take her in.”

 

“Oh nonsense. You are taking her and I have a collar fur her too.” She exclaims as she rushes over and puts a cute pink collar around the dogs neck and she pants happily wagging her tail excitedly as she does so and you hold her tighter to you. Her brown eyes meet yours and you smile. You haven’t felt this feeling before. Having to take care of a little one, she is so cute. You look up at your friend and smile a big smile.

 

“Thank you. I will however be buying food for her at your shop soon and you’ll have to teach me how to train this little cute beast.” You hold the pup out and Nepeta purrs in response as she pats the dog’s head and watches you leave saying, “I will always help you just call or text!” and you then keep our new pup in your sweater with you as you walk back to the apartment.

 

You smile at the thought of her and you decide to name her Pixie. You tell Pixie that’s her name and she barks joyfully in response. You soon don’t care what your brother will have to say about the new dog you have acquired from your pet store owning friend and you let Pixie run loose. While you let your new pet dog run loose, she actually ends up getting on the couch and sits looking at the TV. You put all of the groceries away but you keep some of them out to prepare some dinner while you wait for your best guy friend to arrive to watch the romantic comedy with you. All the while you are still wearing his sunglasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos/Comments are welcome so I now if I should continue this! :) Thank you!


	7. In Which You Are Embarrassed As Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're awaiting Sollux so you can have your movie night and dinner as norm with your brother Kankri. This night involves a daydream, an embarrassing act, text, and another person is introduced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just say I really like Karkat and Kankri's relationship in this? :) Enjoy!

Chapter 7: In Which You Are Embarrassed As Fuck

You just decide to prepare some Alfredo with vegetables and some garlic bread. As you are getting the bread out and putting it in the oven you already have finished most of the pasta except for adding the Alfredo and vegetables. You’re pleasantly surprised that you brother hasn’t come out of his room to see your “present” for both of you. Well, really Pixie is just yours not like your brother will be happy with her anyways or want her as a pet either.

 

You walk over to the couch and look at the cute little long haired and floppy eared toy sized dog and a smile creeps on your face. You’re really glad you ended up saying yes; look how calm she is for gog’s sake. She won’t be any trouble at all, at least as long as she doesn’t get in your brother’s room. Kankri often keeps his door cracked but maybe after he notices the puppy (you know he won’t want it in his room) he’ll start closing it and that will not only keep her out, but lock out your curiosity for his private space as well.

 

You hear the timer go off and you pat Pixie’s head before going back to the oven and opening it, looking at the brown garlic bread. Kankri will smell this sweet garlic scent soon and be coming out to check on what you’re making. You don’t actually mind your brother eating with Sollux and you and you honestly didn’t mind him watching the romantic comedies with you two either. It actually was good because if it was to ever be just Sollux and yourself you’re afraid he would think the little dinner and movie night would be a date (which to you it isn’t at all, but he doesn’t know that) and you don’t want to push him away or feel uncomfortable. You sometimes think that he likes you, but you have someone else on your mind.

 

All of these thoughts run through you mind as you get your oven mitt and pull out the metal tray and set it on top of the stove away from the pot that hold the pasta that has been freshly strained. You bite your lip as you think of the awkwardness of the movie and dinner nights at your place without your brother. You push this aside as you pop open a can of Alfredo sauce and pour in vegetables in the pasta and stir it well. You set up the plates and utensils, Sollux should be here any minute you think as you look at the green digital clock on the oven.

 

You remove the oven mitt and go into your room and spritz on some cologne that you wear on a regular basis but just in case it has faded with the day. You fix your hair in your long mirror and straighten yourself up before leaving your room with a romantic comedy movie in hand. You know what, you like to make sure your physically appearance is well at all times. Could this be why he thinks you like him or at least hope? Maybe you’re just being ridiculous and he doesn’t like you at all. You frown at these thoughts but just go out of your room and let them slide over.

 

As soon as you close your door you hear a door open and your heart flatters slightly as you remember you’re wearing the sunglasses. In the house.

 

Wow, that’s just stupid.

 

You take them off and clip them onto the collar of your shirt as casually as you can before you somewhat speed walk to the front of the apartment. You however stop dead in your tracks as you see a red sweater and a mop of slightly curly hair on your brother’s head. He is looking at the couch. At your Pixie. You know this isn’t going to end well so you already have a few excuses and arguments on why you are going to keep her in the house no matter what he says. You prepare yourself and get ready to interject as soon as he starts to flip out about the dog.

 

You move in a bit closer, slowly, your predator hasn’t seen you yet and you can still prepare. You aren’t going to abscond like how you try to with most of the long essays; I mean lectures, like you do most of the time. You instead stand your ground and get closer. He is bent over a bit with his back to you, probably trying to find a way to wake her without letting you know he has decided to take her back to Nepeta (he just knows everything, or he saw you get drug into her shop). He must have heard you from behind because he speaks first.

 

“Karkat, this is such an adorable dog.”

 

Your mind doesn’t have to stop your mouth as words come out quite loudly, “I will have you know, we are keeping her Kankri.” You swallow realizing that he didn’t say anything bad about Pixie and you clasp a hand over your mouth to try to take back what you said. Kankri turns around and straightens up looking at you.

 

“Of course we’re keeping her. If you don’t mind though, she should stay off the couch. We can run by Nepeta’s and Feferi’s tomorrow and get her a dog bed. That is, if that’s okay with you.” He says with a sarcastic tone at the end, he knows you thought he would be upset and he actually smiles and gives a small chuckle at this. It’s been a while since you’ve seen him in such good spirits since he usually just complains a lot and you smile back.

 

“Yeah, that sounds good to me. Oh, I also have some dog food it’s on the kitchen counter right now and dinner is done.” You wave the movie up to flash it at your brother and you give a huge grin before continuing. “Also, I’ve picked this out for the movie tonight.”

 

Kankri just looks at the movie and gives a corner of his mouth an upward tug, in what you assume is to be a smile and take it for what it’s worth before you follow his small body mass into the kitchen with your eyes.

 

“Looks good Karkat. Can’t wait to eat. Is Sollux coming tonight?” He says the question as he is coming back out of the kitchen and you are picking up Pixie carefully, stroking her head as you set her gently on the ground and you stand up before answering.

 

“Yeah, he said he was coming.” You glance at the analog clock hanging on the wall and notice he is a good ten minutes late, he’s never late though. You pick up your phone and press the power button, no missed calls or text messages. “That’s weird, I haven’t gotten anything from him and you know he hates being late.” You look up at your brother and he seems to have a worried look on his face too.

 

Before you could do anything further he speaks up, “Why don’t you call Sollux and see if he’s coming? Of course this could cause him to be upset if he is just running late this time around, I could see how that would be troubling to some people especially if he is busy at work. Then the people he is trying to help would be triggered by…” And you drown the rest out as you pull out your phone from your pocket and press Sollux’s name and hit call on the phone’s screen.

 

*Ring….Ring….Bbbrrriinnnggg…*

 

“Hey thith ith Sollux leave a methage afther the beep.” *Beep*

 

Nothing, huh? You put the phone out so you can see the screen and you glare at it. What the fuck is his problem?? If he didn’t want to come he could have just said so instead of keeping you waiting. Fuck ass. You think this as you press the end button and practically slam your cell phone down on the counter as you make your brother jump and you walk into the kitchen getting some food for yourself.

 

“You know that could have easily set someone into a rage, a nightm-“

 

“Shut the FUCK up Kankri.”

 

You say this hatefully as you feel the hatred raise up in your stomach and you grab some pasta and a piece of garlic bread as you breathe out slowly with angry shaking fists holding your plate. You see your brother is in utter shock with his mouth gaping open. That was the first time you have ever gotten a word in while he went on a tangent and it was the first time you have yelled at him.

 

“…” Kankri just looks at you before he blinks and then walks into the kitchen with his arms folded as he goes.

 

You plop down on the couch and grumble to yourself as you start to eat the slippery pasta. You even chew violently as if it were meant to inflict some kind of pain to someone. Pixie is down on the floor curled up looking up at you with her big brown eyes and you heart instantly stops for a second before continuing and you realize there isn’t any reason to be upset.

 

*Ding Ding Dong*

 

That’s your doorbell. Who the hell would be out there? You haven’t invited anyone, you look back over your shoulder at your brother who is coming into the living room half of the apartment and looks at you blankly with a confused look.

 

Well, it’s not your brother’s company. You set your plate down on the coffee table and sigh agitated as you get up. You hate being disturbed while you’re eating; it just takes up too much of your fucking time. You look through the peep hole and of course you see Sollux with an enlarged circular head looking at your door. You growl as you open the door and glare at him. His eyes shift to his sunglasses he lent you with a smile on his face until he sees yours then it just turns into a small line.

 

“KK let me ethplain..” He begins holding his hands up with their palms facing you as he sees the hate and the glare coming from you enraged face.

 

Before he could even breathe you let it all out, and you don’t really notice but the neighbors around that are walking back into their rooms either hurry in or if they were going out close their door hurriedly and wait with terrified looks on their faces.

 

“You FUCKING little shit! I even tried to call you and you don’t fucking say a damn thing let alone fucking call! You are never fucking late and look at this asshole standing all fucking smug; and in case you don’t know who that smug asshole is it’s YOU!! You take your fucking time while we are over here worrying the fuck out about your well-being! Maybe you think that people don’t care about you and maybe you’re right! You have no purpose being here and you are a fucking asshat shit! FUCK THIS SHIT!” you yell as you slam down his sunglasses and slam the door in his face and lock it.

 

*BAM! Click!*

 

With a huff you pick up your plate trying not to look at your ghostly white brother with his huge gaping mouth and large eyes looking at you with such surprise it looks like he could have shit a brick. You clean off your plate and wash it and you stomp off into your room. As you get your hand on the handle there is that familiar sound, only it is a fucking annoying ass sound that you want to break with a fucking zillyhoo hammer and then blast it with a raygun and then send the ashes over to the sea and have some large sea monster swallow them whole.

 

You finally feel your face’s heat as you stomp back into the living room and this time your brother has Pixie in his lap holding her ears, wondering if he should run into his room or lecture you about making a fool out of yourself and triggering people with your loudness brashness and many other things people would find triggering. You however notice that he just frowns and then sighs as he picks up Pixie and walks into his room closing the door and all the mystery with it.

 

You let out a breath before opening the door and you see your best friend whom you’re very pissed with at the moment looking at your with a very sad look. His very rare “mutant” two different colored eyes look into yours with a very “I’m sorry” look. His blue and red eyes look upset in the background but they mostly show sincere apologetic emotion. You swallow hard as you look his face over and then you look down. You notice, he holds his cracked sunglasses in his hands. Then you decide to let him in and as he walks in he starts talking.

 

“Look, thith won’t help me in the sthithesth but I thwear it wathnt my faulth for being lathe.” His lisp is very heavy while he says this, he seems to be under a lot of stress but you can understand this since you just yelled and screamed the fuck out of this fucker. You’re actually surprised he stood around and waited for you to calm down a bit.

 

You close the door and turn around as you look at him. You open your mouth as you’re about to speak but he continues with his side of the conversation, or how you look at, his pathetic excuse as far as you’re concerned right now.

 

“Okay lithen KK becauth I’m only going to thay thith onthe. I wath buthy becauthe of the thwarm of cuthomerths that came in early today. I had to sthay over time and help finith up with the reth of the work thath one of my _fellow_ emplyeeth lefth.” He looks at you with his arms crossed and there is no longer a worried or sad look on his face, rather he is clutching his fists under his arms as you can see from the frown on his face.

 

You look at his now harden eyes and you bring out a long breath from your lungs as you just notice you were holding it in for some strange fucking reason. You’re still pretty pissed as hell but he did have a good excuse, but that’s because he works with Eridan who thinks he’s better than everyone else. He won’t lift a finger hardly at the disc shop and as far as you know, Sollux only hired him on because he wouldn’t shut up about how boring it was being a landlord was to poor, filthy people.

 

“Yeah, alright just shut the fuck up and get some fucking dinner I made all of us.” As you say this you cross your arms and watch Sollux move into your kitchen. You find the DVD you set down angrily on the side table and start up the DVD player under your TV.

 

*Click*

 

You look and you see Kankri is holding Pixie and he is frowning at you. He sets her down and as he comes up he gets into position. You know this position and your eyes widen as your mouth becomes like how his door usually is, slightly open. Oh Gog no…not now.

 

The pointed finger, the closed eyes, the head slightly tilted up. His mouth is opening. Words are going to spill out and it’s going to last at least the entire time of this movie if not longer. You must press play before he gets a word in. You fumble around for the play button and your finger accidently finds the shut button but the DVD tray is already shut so it brings up a prompt.

 

Did he just take in a breath?? You press the play button and not a minute too soon, you look up at your brother and take a sigh of relief as he notices the movie is starting and you turn around to look at what his hazel eyes were focused on. Sollux has already sat down and Pixie is snuggling up next to him while he eats your food.

 

There is your best friend who could possibly like you on your couch eating your food. How could it be any stranger especially after your angry episode? You growl under your breath as quietly as you can as you stop staring at Sollux (you’re still pretty pissed at him) and you make your way to the couch and sit down with Pixie in between the two of you.

 

You see the red blur of a sweater sit down on the chair to your right and the movie starts up with the usual lady with the torch and all that bullshit. You move your jaw around as you know Kankri is going to end up literally talking your ear off as soon as he gets the next chance to. That man doesn’t hold in anything, no matter what it is.

 

Anyways, getting away from family, you look over at your friend whom wants you want to be more than a friend and you see he is looking at you and he has his sunglasses on now despite knowing Kankri gets triggered by that. He gives a small smile before he looks like he’s about to get up but you intervene and shake your head no as you take the plate from and move into the kitchen to put it away. You don’t want him to miss this next part. The main man finally meets the girl in the coffee shop he was staring at all day, just to find out it’s an old man with long hair from behind. That part always got you and you smile a bit at this as you pull out popcorn and put it in the microwave.

 

As you come back you notice that your brother is already starting to get _too_ cozy on the chair and you hand the popcorn bowl over to Sollux who takes a bit and holds the rest in his lap while he watches the movie. As you sit down you just notice that Sollux has his arm around the top of the couch and you’re wondering if it’s been there the whole time. You also notice that Pixie moved and is now sleeping in Kankri’s lap. They actually look really cute together but he better not get any damn ideas. That puppy was yours and yours alone.

 

You decide to sit just a tiny bit closer to Sollux now that Pixie had given up her place and you notice you’re still at arm’s length of Sol but just enough. You feel this is pretty comfortable, but you don’t want to get any closer and give him the wrong idea. You continue to watch the movie and as the man leaves the coffee shop he spots the woman. You smile because you know what’s going to happen next, he’s going to make his move. Just then it happens (ironically).

 

*Swish, ruffle.*

 

You feel something, no three somethings run through the back of your hair but just very lightly. You freeze up as you are unsure of what to do. You can no longer focus on the movie and you face starts to get very hot. You hope that Sollux is paying attention to the movie and not your damned idiot red face. You breathe out slowly as normally and casually as you can muster at this point and time. What the hell, you think it’s him but you’re not sure. Back to the movie the man is catching up to the girl he’s going to surprise her with the flowers he’s had on him for the past five minutes.Then.

 

“Ruffle fuffle.*

 

You now feel five somethings move into one fluid motion on the crown of your head to meet at one point. You feel shivers move through your entire body and the heat then moves from your face to all over your body. You breathe faster and you feel your heart pound much louder than any bass drum being hit during a rock band performing. You slowly close your eyes and you start to daydream, it’s Nepeta. She’s ruffling your hair and smiling and giggling and showing you other puppies. You feel so happy right at this moment you want to go up to her and hug her and tell her you actually feel flushed for her. As to where Sollux is just sitting there like a badass with no facial expression, no nothing on his face giving away what he has just done to you.

 

You need to keep your cool. You need to-

 

Before you could stop anything else his arm is suddenly over your shoulders. You look over at Nepeta and before you could say anything she’s already made her move and she locks her lips with yours. You feel this sudden fire run through your veins as you become aware that this feels great, you just love her you know you do. There are no ifs or buts about it, you love Nepeta and you feel your body shake with the warm that the kiss gives you.

 

You melt into his kiss as she deepens it and you then realize you can’t be the one just sitting by and doing nothing so you move one of your hands down her neck slowly with just the tips of your fingers tracing her jugular. You blink and look at her but you can’t see what she’s looking at from fuzziness of the daydream and her other hand reaches the side of your torso and gently rests there as she moves closer to you and you feel your knee against hers.

 

She moves away from you and you suddenly open your eyes still seeing Nepeta and she’s smiling.

 

It is a beautiful one. She is smiling while she licks her bottom lip and she moves her whole body a bit from you so you can see all of her. She breathing slows down a bit.

 

Then as soon as you hear this sentence uttered everything comes crashing into reality.

 

“KK…I have been wanthing to do that…for a long time with you.” Sollux says with still a slight bit of heavy breathing in between but he is pretty much back to breathing normally now. His face has a blush all around as he says this and he has this huge grin and he pulls his sunglasses down so you can see his eyes and they are swimming around your own eyes sucking in every little green, brown and golden color they have.

 

You aren’t really sure what to say, your worst nightmare just happened. Sollux who is supposed to be your best friend, not lover just messed with your hair, put his arm over you and got closer to you. You honestly hope that the kissing sensation was just a random daydream feeling and that it didn’t happen between the two of you. You feel anger pint up in your body and you feel the heat of embarrassment beyond anything you have ever felt up to your finger tips and around your whole body.

 

Hmm, you seemed to have just had a weird daydream about your best friend. What the fucking hell is wrong with you? Now he must think you’re some nut. Shit, stop staring at him with all of the rage you have built up. Just tell him how you really feel and that it’s not okay to do that shit to you, at all. You get ready to go off with a tangent about the shit he just pulled but you notice something from the corner of your eye. You then notice that you cell phone which is on the end table lights up with a text message from someone.

 

You pick up your cell phone and press the messages tile to see you have a message from Kanaya. She must be texting you at work because it’s very short. You also luckily settle down a bit, Kanaya even through text has always been able to calm you down.

 

Tavros is in the hospital. I can’t get ahold of Gamzee so I’m not sure what’s going on. I’d think that he’d be with Tavros or at least on his way. The ambulance was here earlier to take him. I hope everything is okay.

 

You’re not sure what to make of this as you stare at it for a few seconds. You no longer worry about the stupid daydream and the cuddling for now, and you look at Sollux.

 

A thought runs through your mind, why didn’t Gamzee tell you this? They are such close friends, have been ever since that day. You frown thinking about this and you push it away as you gather your thoughts and try not to think of that daydream. Right now you need to go visit Tavros and make sure the little shit is okay. Now you’re really truly Tavros’ friend and you feel responsible for him. You frown and you think of what you’re going to say to Sollux but you just glare at him for a bit before saying anything.

 

“We are going to have to go to the hospital. Tavros, the damned idiot, got into trouble.” You say as you stop the movie and Kankri opens his eyes and he pets Pixie a bit.

 

***

 

==>  ???

 

The cold air is brushing past you. You should have brought more than a jacket along. You sigh into the night and you look over to your left as someone walks past you. You can’t really be sure who it is but you assume it’s someone with a heavy load either figuratively or realistically.

 

You stumble over a larger pile of snow that someone decided not to shovel up and you half curse them under your breath. Someone could easily break a leg especially since it is so dark out. You know you’ll reach the place soon. Just a little longer and you’ll be where it all happened. Damnit if it took you all night to find this place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments or kudos or both are welcome in letting me know you enjoyed my silly story. :D


	8. In Which Two Angry, Long Winded, Windbags Are Put Together In A Room And Shadows Start To Appear Vicious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You're Tavros once again and you have company in your tiny room and then you are left alone to think. Later you turn over to Gamzee and you start to think of your best brother and you start to see things.

Chapter 8: In Which Two Angry, Long Winded, Windbags Are Put Together In A Room And Shadows Start To Appear Vicious

 

==>  Be Tavros

 

You flip the TV station over and realized there is a story that is getting ready to appear. The lady that is dressed in large jacket and as she’s speaking there is the subtitle stating “another missing…” but you decide you don’t want to watch any of the bad news so you just turn it off. You frown as you wish they would have kept Peter Pan for you.

 

This room is so boring. You can’t do anything but sit around in this bed and flip through the channels, order lunch, fall asleep, and be bored. This now marks the first whole day you’ve been here and the doctor told you that your body started to act against the pain meds and antibiotics, somehow, and they have put you on new ones and they have to monitor how you do with them for the next two full days. What joy.

 

You hear someone cry in pain and you can tell they are moving down the hallway fast as you hear it from one side down to the next in just a few seconds. Your eyes don’t dare peek out as best they can to see what has happened to the poor crying person. Fists of anticipation form on the ends of your arms as you clench the stiff white blanket in them. You hope they’re okay. Damn, you really need to get your mind off of pain, just as you think this your back starts to hurt and your legs as well.

 

Yeah that’s right. The doctor didn’t find any brain damage from the scan but later this evening he came in and told you that you had some damage to your lower spine and legs. They said it wouldn’t be any paralysis, but the antibiotics they gave you were for the infection you seemed to have contracted in that area from the fall. It doesn’t make any sense to you, but they are doctors so all you can do is listen and nod to what they say.

 

There really isn’t anything to do in this place so you decide to lay back. You don’t have your cell phone, the police still have that in custody for some reason so you’ll just have to do without telling your friends that you are okay and where you are. Company would be pretty nice, you imagine, but you wouldn’t ask your friends to just come in anyways, especially not after what happened yesterday night with Gamzee. You really don’t feel that your other friends would be that way or even have feelings for you like that, but you just have been glad no one saw you after that happened. The nurse that came in afterwards seemed pretty upset that Gamzee left. You knew he would always catch someone’s attention. He’s just so tall and has a very nice thin structured face.

 

A sigh escapes your lips, you have no reason to be talking or thinking for this matter about your friend in that manner. It just isn’t something a friend would think about another friend, or so you thought. Did Gamzee think about you like that, now that you know he likes you? How could you not have seen it before? You twist your face up as you think about these things, for the second time today and you hear the door open with a knock at the end. Brown eyes meet two pairs of hazel eyes and a pair of red and blue sunglasses standing in your doorway.

 

Karkat, Sollux and Kankri. What are they doing here? You beckon them in with an arm and adjust yourself with the plethora of pillows around you on your bed. You make yourself sit up a bit more and face yourself towards them. Kankri takes the seat nearest the door along with Sollux and Karkat, with a smug look takes the seat closest to the bed. The one that Gamzee was sitting in just a day ago. You almost frown as some sort of frightening feeling runs through your spin but you dismiss this as Karkat’s rant throws that out of the water.

 

“You fuckass! I had to stop my roma-uhh…movie just to come down and see you? Fuck this. You have always gotten into fucking situations where you end up in stupid shit like this. I fucking hate you for this. Every time I go and see you and you have that stupid smile on your face. What’s the fucking problem fucker? Do I look like I want to be SMILED at right now? Jesus FUCKING Christ. You have no fucking decency whatsoever I mean look at you. You smell like a cow and you have those stupid sheet dresses on. You have no shame. You could have texted us to tell us what happened. I AM you friend, but damnit Tavros if you go and do this shit all the damn time I won’t put up with it. Watch where you dumbass fucking feet go or whatever the fuck happened.” He says as he points to your “dress” with such great emphasis that he then crosses his arms and even closes his eyes. You think he may be hanging around Kankri too much.

 

Once you stop you have only one thing in how to react, you giggle a bit at his long rant. Sollux looks up from his phone that he was texting on and frowns at your giggle. He has this “oh god” look his face before he scoots lower into the chair. However, before Karkat could speak Kankri rises from his chair and walks over to the two of. You follow Sollux’s eyes to Kankri and look up at him with large eyes and a small frightened mouth. For you see the pointed finger and you hear the intake of breath. Why must you have such long winded friends?

 

”Well Karkat, not only have you been able to wake up all of the patients on this floor sleeping, but with your loud tone you have even managed to offend most of the staff here. I for one am offended and I am not even Tavros’ position, you have triggered me so many times in the past day, but I let that go but not anymore. You need to learn how to speak properly for one, for two you need to learn that some things can be triggering to others and you need to tell them ahead of time what is going to be taking place in your rants, thirdly you must not ever tell your friend they smell like some animal, that is just rude and some people could take an offense to this and then that would ensue a fight which you would undoubtedly lose knowing you. Pixie is fine but did you once think on how the other neighbors around us might feel about a dog, we don’t know if they are allergic to them, and speaking of neighbors as you went and spoke way too loudly for anyone, you then had me the pleasure to hear you rant to Sollux tonight, and that was not at all fun for me. Let me tell you, I would have lectured you about why you can’t do that if he wasn’t there and if you movie wouldn’t have played which brings up another point, why did that movie start as I was about ready to speak? You need to take into account what I want sometimes, it can’t always be about you, I talk about things that need to be brought to people’s attention, not anything about what you have to say matters at any point and time rather than what I have to say. I do hope that wasn’t too triggering for you Tavros and Sollux but he needs to be taught some kind of manners sometimes otherwise he will just end up upsetting everyone and no one will be happy around Karkat.” He says the last bit as he unfolds his arms and opens his eyes. He swallows as he walks back to his chair and sits down.

 

Sollux, Karkat and yourself are just staring at Kankri with your mouths open and you aren’t sure at all what to say now. There is a long silence, however, the silence as almost welcome as the three of you, one of which goes back to look at his phone and the other two, one consisting of you, go back to look at the other and you sigh to yourself. Well at least you have friends who care.

 

Sollux looks up from his phone and says, “Tavroth, thorry, I jutht have never really known what to thay to you, but I hope you feel better and don’t let KK or KK’th brother get to you with their rantth we all care for you.”

 

You look over at him and give him your best smile that you can and he seems pleased with it as he goes back to looking at his phone and you look at Karkat.

 

“…uh…I’m sorry Karkat…I just was so glad to see you and umm actually your rants help me not worry about what’s going on.”

 

Karkat frowns before continuing and has a look of indifference, “What is wrong with you?” He says but under the coldness you can hear a bit of concern.

 

“Just my legs and lower back, they got infected from wrong medicine and the fall I had. At least…I uh…think it was a fall.” You tell him, you aren’t too sure if it was a fall or something else. You would assume it was a fall since you were pretty drunk that night.

 

Karkat looks at you as he gets a little comfortable in his chair and that’s when you know he is going to go all doctor on you. You brace yourself a bit because you really have no idea what he’s going to say. The wooden clock on the plain boring white wall ticks by for a few seconds before he says anything.

 

“So, what ended up happening to Gamzee? I would have thought that he would tell me you were in here but he did not. It actually ended up being Kanaya, now I know that the two of you assholes are pretty close even if you don’t hang out very often but I would assume Gamzee has been here to see if you were okay, right?” He asks with a half expectant look on his face saying he better hear what he wants to hear.

 

You however aren’t fazed by this since the two of you have been friends for a few years so you know you can tell him the truth. And it won’t hurt his feelings, as you normally are more careful with your words around others, you don’t have to be with Karkat.

 

“Yeah Gamzee came over for a bit…uh but he ended up leaving pretty early. Said he had stuff or uh…something like that he had to attend to.”

 

 You decide to leave out the part that Gamzee confessed his feelings for you because it seemed too strange to mix that in with everything right now. Not only that, but it didn’t seem right as you thought about it, it didn’t flow well with your tongue and you were upset that Gamzee just left like that as well.

 

“Hmm yeah well I suppose that sounds about like him. He always forgets everything or puts things off that should be put the fuck off. Anyways-“Karkat is cut off by Sollux speaking up briefly, probably not listening in before because he talks about something off topic but you still turn to him and listen.

 

“Oh, we thaw Fef and Eridan. He theemed tho be in pretty bad conidithon if you athk me. Fef thaid it wath becauth he theemed to have fallen from hith “high horth”. Heth jutht a fuck asth anyway though. Ugh fuck. KK the dog. We forgot to put her up or thomthing.” He says as he puts his phone in his pocket and furrows his brows together in some kind of agitation.

 

“Yeah, yeah. You know how to get in the apartment Sollux.” He waves his hand at him and Kankri gets up too.

 

“Actually, I believe I’m going to go back home because I have to get up early for the parade, you know, that will be coming in town next week. They asked me to help them and I had to agree and then I have to get the church and get ready to help with the potluck dinner for the homeless, you know how it goes Karkat.” He looks at you with a smile. “I hope you get better soon Tavros. Sorry I couldn’t stay any longer, it’s not because you’re sort of, disabled either, it’s just I really need to get home and get some sleep, don’t take it personally I just have more important things to worry about right now.”

 

You half frown at this statement, Kankri has always been known to worry more about his own problems than others so you just let it slide as you smile and say thanks as Sollux and Kankri head out for the Vantas’ apartment. You now feel like Karkat shouldn’t be staying here any longer either so you twiddle your thumbs and look down, a bad habit you picked up from childhood.

 

“Well, I was going to say, I really do fucking care about you, even though you’re a dumbass and get into all kinds of trouble so if you need any kind of help just get a hold of me.” He goes to get ready to punch you lightly in the arm but then stops and lowers his hand. “I actually need to go back with them. I have a new dog so you should come over and see her some time.” He gets up and looks at you with a small smile saying “get better”.

 

“I’ll get better don’t worry about me Karkat. Just get home and take care of everything, and don’t get drunk hehe.” You say as you wave to him as he chuckles and leaves.

 

You are now alone in the room again and you now are with yourself and your thoughts. You start to think of your friend Gamzee. He has been friends with you for a long time and has been with you through you hard times although he seemed to have more he never let that on. You frown at the thought of what he had said, he _liked_ liked you… There is no way to think of it in any other way than he likes you more than just in a platonic sense.

 

You move in your bed as you try to make sense of it. It didn’t sound right to you, but you had just told him straight up, no I don’t feel the same way. You had really pressed that sentence hard on him. You’re glad Karkat and they left, there was no way you really felt like company anyways with these thoughts running through.

 

You lay back with the comfortable pillows against your back as you think of what you did to Gamzee. He is your best friend and you were so mean to him in letting him know how you felt. You weren’t really sure how to look at this situation other than to blame yourself and you did. You felt like shit for doing that to our best bro. Yeah so what, the way he said his feelings had unnerved you, you shouldn’t have been so blunt with him.

 

You shiver as you feel some sort of cold rush in the room and you pull up a blanket. Anyways, now you feel like shit, you weren’t ever even put down that hard when you asked that one girl in middle school if she would by your girlfriend. You feel like an asshole that you knew you were and you frown and clench a fist.

 

Damnnit…damnnit to hell…Karkat was right you’re an asshole.

 

You decide you just needed to get some sleep and think it over on how you were going to say sorry to Gamzee, that is if you could. You thought about how you were going to meet him for coffee or something of the sort one morning and tell him you’re sorry about how you said it but you wouldn’t mind being his best bro still. You think that’s the best way to put it and you decide to stick with that but you can’t help but feel terrible for the way you shot him down. A frown deepens on your lips as you soon fall asleep but you don’t have good dreams, you dream that you’re falling.

 

You dream of this fall, but it ends in a hard crunch and you feel you lungs fill up and you aren’t able to breathe. Your vision starts to become blurry as you try to lift a hand up to the now silhouette that is in front of you. It’s high above you looking down at you. You see frizzy hair and the same purple jacket that Gamzee wears. You then close your eyes and once they open again you take in one last breath and Gamzee is standing over you with this terribly sad look on his face and he kneels down next to you trying to help you. Blurs of his hands move around and you feel two drops hit your face. You can’t move now and you feel so so tired. You just want to sleep this weird fire sensation rising up. You close your eyes and everything goes black.

 

***

 

==>  Be Gamzee

 

You’re walking outside with just your warm pajama pants and of course you have your purple jacket covering you and your t-shirt. This motherfucking cold is really getting to you and you start to shiver just a bit, which is a first for you. You move over to the right side of the street because on the left side of the street you see a few of those shadow creatures snarling. One tries to cross but is luckily hit by a car and evaporates before your eyes.

 

Luckily that car was there. You really don’t want those things getting to you right now. You sigh as a cloud of your breath fills the air and moves past your face. Yeah, you seem really busy thinking about your best bro and how he doesn’t…what was it? Reciprocate the feelings you had for him. You still have that frown on your face from the room.

 

You remember you were just sitting in the chair and you didn’t even look up at him after said that. You were too embarrassed and you weren’t sure where to go from there so you made up a stupid excuse and just left. You don’t even remember what the excuse was but you know it was stupid because you half mumbled the lie as you briskly walked out of the room and ran out of the hospital. You felt better after the run of course but you couldn’t help that you had to left feet and that you almost tripped from the large steps.

 

You look up and notice you’re lost now, you don’t remember where you were even going in the first place. Your thoughts are too jumbled up right now to really think straight. You look down at your hand that was out and by your side as you walked and you see that it starts to become fuzzy and one of those motherfuckers pop  up laughing maniacally at you as it leaps for you face. You scream as you stumble back and try to claw at your face, your hands getting the clown oil all messed up from the attempt to keep the shadow away from you.

 

“AHH!!” You scream as you go down to your knees and you claw at your face and you feel warm liquid on your finger nails as it runs down our face. You breathe as you open your eyes and see that they are starting to surround you, all around everywhere. You hear them laughing at you and you scramble with red hands and a blood face to stand up. You weren’t going to let them get a hold of you, that one must have missed because it didn’t seem to get inside, which was good, you never wanted them inside anyways.

 

Your tall wiry frame gets up and you hold your head for just a second to get you surroundings. You look past the crawling creeping and curling black mass that is surrounding you, you however see a break. You will have to book it in order to make it thought. You heart beats fast as you start sweating from fear as they inch closer, their white eyes glowering up at you, their mouths twisted with snarls and grimaces. You then make your way through the small break they had.

 

*HONK honk HONK!*

 

You hear honks swimming all around you and bright lights. You don’t really notice it but you have run in the middle of traffic and cars are stopping left and right not hit you. You look at the drivers as it becomes clear you are in the street and you look terrified. Why aren’t they running from the monsters? You are too scared to remember that others can’t see them and you scream as someone who has passed by you screams at you.

 

You run faster as you make it towards the bridge you would hang with Tavros here. You slow to a halt and look back behind you. They seem to have stopped for now. Or at least from what you can see they have been beaten and are far behind now. Good, you don’t want those fuckers near you anyways.

 

 You sit down with you back against an old brace for the bridge’s wooden frame and you let out a deep sigh and close your eyes. The blood is now stiff and scratchy on your face from the cold wind but you ignore it as memories of Tavros and yourself in different ages and season are here on or around this bridge and the running river below. You hear the river as it ripples through the otherwise silence surrounding you. There are flashbacks; the two of you are hanging out here. Fishing, swimming, and just laughing and having a good time. You feel warm tears fall as you taste salt and a metallic taste run in your mouth as you let out sobs. They wrack your body as you cry harder.

 

Your heart seems to be so broken and you aren’t sure how to mend it. You’ve never felt this way before, not even with your father and his weird ways of showing affection. Not even when you first started to go to school and you didn’t know anyone. You were so nice to everyone but they ignored you. None of the bad things that happened to you could amount together to become the heart splitting pain you feel now.

 

_You’re a fuck up Makara._

You ears pick up a very low sounding graveling rough voice from somewhere you were not sure exactly where it was. Your tears fall heavier but you stop with the sobs as they turn to small little mumbles and you try to look around for the words that were said through tear blurred eyes. You however cannot place where its origin is coming from. You swallow as the tears start to stop but then you hear the cutest little giggle from your best motherfucking brother and you feel your bottom lip curl up and tears start to fall again.

 

_Motherfucking go up and show him you love him. DO IT._

That mother fucker of a voice is really starting to creep you out.

 

 You open your eyes from the crying as the tears stop completely this time. You dart your eyes back and forth as you notice the shadows have gotten too close now. They are laughing at you and some are even pointing, probably because of how dumb you were to let your guard down at a time like this. You should have been paying closer attention but it was too late now. You can feel fire radiating from each of them as you start sweating and with one breath they jump at you and as you try to scream they knock you over and run into your eyes as you try to claw at them. The gravel sandy feeling of the cement is scraping your face, but you are too busy to notice because of the pain that is going through the rest of your body right now.

  
Get out get out get out!! You think as you try to move your hands up to your face but you can’t move them at all. You start breathing faster as you see more coming in towards you with tridents and they are thrusting it in your stomach and as you feel fire there you seem them jump in with wicked laughter. You roll over to your back and close your eyes as you feel sharp pains going everywhere around your body and fire chasing after the sharpness.

 

 _That’s right Gamzee._ YOU _WILL SEE JUST HOW MUCH YOU_ NEED _US._

 

This was said in many different voices and you dare not open your eyes as you feel more blood spilling but this time it happens to be through your eyes. You feel it run down. Down your face and a bit going into your mouth and you hear the voices chuckle and then you hear honks. You used to love clowns but the honks scare the shit out of you as you feel the shadows pull at your limbs to the point of breaking off your torso. You feel the fire in your eyes as they stab them and jump in and the fire and pain everywhere. You can’t move and aren’t sure what else to do but wait until it’s over. You feel the world spin as everything even inside your head goes numb.

  
You hear one last sound: HONK!

 

You then realize where these noises and voices are coming from, inside your own head.

 

You then you feel this terrible feeling of being burnt all over your body and you try to squirm away but you cannot. The pain sets off a huge migraine and you breathe so fast that you’re afraid of stopping as you feel your arms curl up under you and your legs buckle in awkward positions and your body shakes violently. You feel your head for a split second lift up and then hit the concrete.

 

*Crack!*

 

All because of those motherfuckers….

 

You then feel calmness and some sort of peace and you then black out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I commend the people who read all of Kankri's rant to Karkat. T.T


	9. Craziness Ensues and Insight On the Vantas Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gamzee's spree
> 
> Young Kankri and Karkat <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Ah and clubs.

Chapter 9: Craziness Ensues and Insight On the Vantas Family

 

*Ripple….ripple*

 

This is the sound that you first hear. It’s a sound you are familiar with, maybe a river or running water somewhere.

 

You wake up with the afternoon sun just getting ready to start falling for the moon to take over and for it to be dark and the world to be covered in shadows. As you wake up and sit up you look around you, but you are very confused. You don’t remember much of what has happened the night before or why you’re even laying on the ground on a bridge. You stand up and stretch slightly as you feel all of the kinks move out of your body.

 

You notice however that no one is around. You then notice as well that the shadows are gone. Well, that's a motherfucking relief. They always scared the shit out of you and you had hard times falling asleep as it was. Those nightmares didn’t wake you up either. You frown as you start to wonder what has happened because not only are the shadows gone but you also are free from your sweat drenched wake ups in the middle of the night.

 

There is something heavy that you are holding in your hand. Your eyes avert down and you see it’s a jacket. You must not have been paying too much attention because it has likely been with you the entire time. You raise it up and sniff it to see who it smells like. It smells like your best brother’s body spray and cinnamon chocolate shampoo. There is a slight twinge in your mouth but you’re not sure if it’s supposed to be a smile or a frown. Getting over the jacket you drop your arm back to your side.

 

Your feet move forward and you for no reason start to think about on one being around. Why isn’t anyone around? It’s so goddamn quiet it doesn’t feel natural. Is this one of your mother fuck dreams that you‘ll wake up to later and be scared again? You really hope not, and you hope that you start seeing people soon. You clench your fists, and why were you lying down on a bridge of all places sleeping? None of this is adding up and you just keep trying to think of different situations in which you would be sleeping outside but nothing comes to mind.

 

Well this isn’t a dream you take a mental note as you hear cars off in the distance and you start to notice some people talk and walk by as well. You start to walk faster as you soon are in the woods and it’s darker now. You hear the twigs crack under your feet and you smile at this noise, this noise you’re able to make. You feel you heart beat raise and as you’re just about out of the woods your eyes adjust to everything and you become more aware than ever before. There is two juggling clubs down on the ground by a tree. You know they're yours or at least meant for you. As you set down the jacket in your one hand you pick up the clubs without any hesitation and they feel light and natural in your grasp. You smile a wicked mirthful smile, you keep them in your hands as they are dangling beside you tall wiry body, you feel this immense sensation hit you as you start to walk out of the wooded area.

 

The bright lights are the first things that hit you and immediately you cringe; your smile turns into a straight line on your face as your eyes adjust to this. Still you keep walking your pace, you feel this fire burn inside, deep inside and as you walk by you hear screams coming from all around you. They aren’t pointed at you so you aren’t too worried.

 

 The screams die down and you then start laughing as you look around these people. All around you, you see blood splashed and pooled on their faces. You feel a hand raise towards someone’s head and you feel the nice crush of bone and then soft skin as the club makes contact, you are breathing easier now.

 

You feel so much better now, more than you could have when you were high or any other time. You felt so great, that is until you then hear the screams. God, are they fucking annoying. You have to silence them as you start to get a headache. The body in front of you crumbles slowly to the sidewalk and the blood pools up all around it as it is limp from death. You stare at the marvelous blood that is now on your club and you start looking around curiously. People running in fear this way and that way but you just honk and laugh your deep throated laugh as you walk on. Your purple eyes see a small quant shop and you feel drawn to this building. It beckons with white light glowing around it.

 

You chase this, what looks to be a pet shop now, and you speed walk towards it. It calls and you need to answer.  You keep your club down as you enter and you see someone’s face. Someone, you aren’t sure who’s it is, but you hear that motherfucking screaming. That MOTHERFUCKING SCREAMING is echoing everywhere. Your eyes catch her lips moving so slow as she looks at you and they form a smile unknowningly of what you have. You raise you club as you jump over the desk and before she can fully raise her hands to run a fist through your head, with fear plastered on her skin, you bring it down over and over as she falls. You hear cracking and blood splatters everywhere. All over the walls and you stop and you stand up as you were crouching to hit the body of this now dead girl. You laugh. It isn’t your own, but it feels great to laugh and to see this red splattered all over the place. You even notice there is blood on your own face and this makes you chuckle louder.

 

You lick the blood off the best you can with your long tongue as you walk through the blood around the body. With that same lop sided grin you walk out the shop and continue on the quest you were given and a path is soon lit for you. You leaving a few bloody footsteps from the shop in your wake as you feel your body move in directions something other than your own brain is telling you to go. It must be the voices, yes the voices and screams, you must shut them up once and for all.

 

All for you brother. All so he knows what you feel and for yourself and this higher being.

 

==>  Be Kankri Vantas In the Past

 

You wake up to the darkness of you medium sized room with your younger brother snoring away at the bottom of the bunk bed. You groggily sit up and rub your eyes with the heels of your hands and you quietly and skillfully climb down the ladder and make your way to the bathroom.

 

The shower’s hot water feels really nice on your tired sleepy body and you are reciting the facts of world war two as you wash your face, body and hair and then you step out of the shower with a clean towel around your waist. You have all of your hygienic tools out already in neat order: the red tooth brush in the red circle holder with the toothpaste lay down next to it. Your floss is in the large mirror which you pull out and you look down at the overly ornate sink and the marble countertop. Clean as ever, you think as you smile as you brush your teeth and continue to remember the facts for your exam today.

 

You then have your red sweater on that has been “properly” cleaned by your mother because you apparently don’t know how to wash your own sweaters or clothes. You check in on your brother who is has gotten up now and must be down at the kitchen with your mother which is where you’re heading next. You step down the stairs lightly with fresh socks on your feet and you see your shoes next to the entryway with the front door. You move your eyes away from the shoes as you go into the kitchen. The sparkling clean kitchen has nice olive green walls, onyx countertops and the small little island in the middle of the huge room. All of the silver appliances shine back at you as you open up the two door refrigerator and pull out an apple and yogurt out of drawer and close the doors. You see your brother in his black sweater looking up at you from the kitchen table.

 

You smile and you sit down next to him as you see he has gotten both of your book bags ready as they are sitting down on the floor against the chairs. He is eating chocolate chip pancakes but you rather not have any so you just say, “Mother, could you get me a glass of water please?” You see your mother’s light green eyes shine through with her beautiful smile and face to match. You loved how beautiful her smile always was and you hoped to always make her proud of you and your younger brother Karkat.

 

“Of course dear, you’re going to get an A on that exam today aren’t you?” she asks in a sing song voice. She knows you always get top marks in all of your classes, but she just wants to make small talk while she can see you this morning.

 

“I will, don’t worry about that. And Karkat will too on his Biology exam as well.” You say matter of factly while you look at him and he just gives you this glare through his pancake eating.

 

Your mother sets your glass of water down and you take a nice drink of it. She patiently watches you for a moment as she pats her curly long flowing dark hair.

 

 You were pretty thirsty and you were glad she got it for you because you really didn’t want to get up, as bad as that sounds you had more memorizing to do. You already knew everything but sometimes you stressed out over these things and you couldn’t always be sure how well you’d do and you had a reputation to keep up.

 

You look over at your brother who chases down the pancakes with milk and he runs up the stairs to get his things ready. You are seventeen and your younger brother is fourteen. You both are quite similar in the fact that you stand up for what you believe in, but Karkat seems a bit angry. Well okay, he’s very angry, quite a lot. But besides that, he is an okay brother who is very intelligent such as yourself and you hope that there isn’t too much of a shadow that he has to be in.

 

Your train of thought is stopped when your mother speaks up sitting on the other side of the table looking at you wiping her brow as she has gotten done with the dishes.

 

“You know Kankri, your father would be very proud of you too, he’s just busy. I’m sorry he can’t be here all the time. But as you know, after your brother was born he’s been off teaching and giving those sermons.” She laughs her dainty little laugh and continues: “But we both are very proud of you and I know he’ll be back soon and he’ll treat you two out for such high marks.” She puts a hand on your shoulder as she stands up and gets to moving over to the living room and starts to clean in there. She and your brother are the only ones you let touch you. Even just a slight hand from anyone else really bothers you to no end.

 

You smile and you think, since father isn’t here most of the time and he is off trying to get to have people see the good in things I need to watch out for my brother. And that’s what you have been doing since you were about nine years old. Whenever there was a bully you’d simply open your mouth and as soon as the bully knew who you were he’d run off. You like to think it’s because you were good at persuasion, but maybe it’s because they know who your dad is or because you’re just very long winded and people don’t want to listen to your lectures. Hopefully however it’s not the latter. You really don’t think it is.

 

You don’t really realize this but you are the type of person who is very protective. However you like your father, like to have your ideas and thoughts heard. You can take it too far and you dismiss all others and only take heart to your own. Too bad you don’t really realize this; you’d probably have more friends if you did and if you didn’t continue to rant on. The teachers love you because you work very hard and you love education. You love learning things and you especially love when people will pay attention to your needs.

 

Anyways, enough about you. For now. It’s time to get ready for the bus and get ready to go to school. You just have one more year after this and it’s almost time for winter break so you’re pretty excited. You plan on seeing your father and getting ready to go into college after the rest of this year and next, you can’t wait for that. You get your book bag and you stuff your food inside, get to the entryway, put your shoes on and wait for your brother. He is right on time as he is heading down getting his book bag and shoes on. You mother says she loves the both of you as she smiles and waves as you both open the door.

 

You both walk outside and wait for the bus since it runs right in front of your house and picks you up. You’re glad for this especially during the winter when it’s very freezing outside. Now, the only reason you aren’t driving is because you don’t have a car. You passed the driving test a bit after your sixteenth birthday but your father said he will be getting a car with you when he comes home during the summer. That’s another reason why you’re very ready for summer to come.

 

Karkat doesn’t say too much when he first wakes up but you don’t try to talk to him as you notice he’s gotten to be very cranky in the mornings. You also have noticed he has gotten about as tall as you, and his voice has started to get deeper. He’s getting to be a young man and you try to place a hand on his head and ruffle his hair but it doesn’t feel right so you just place it lightly on his shoulder and smile. He just returns this gesture with a look at you of confusion and tiredness. That’s okay; he’ll be more energetic after school. You both hear the loud revving of the bus engine and you see the yellow vehicle pull up next to your house. You take your hand off your brother’s shoulder so you don’t embarrass him, and you both get on the bus and squeeze into the same seat. Karkat pulls out his iPod and he gives you an ear bud and you both listen to some music he has on and get ready for school to start.

 

You get to school and you both stand up after everyone is already lining the little walkway in the middle of the bus. You both of course are given room to get out right before the doors open and you walk out. You would shiver like all of the other kids that are walking but because of your sweater your mother made you, there is no cold coming through. You really loved this actually. You have also noticed that your brother stays a bit closer to you but once you get into school him almost always ignores you. You don’t really mind that though because you’re busy with work and so is he. You both however do have a class together on Thursdays and you sit at the same table. Since it’s one of the last classes you both have he is a bit more talkative.

 

You get into the building and make your way to your first class. You smile at Karkat as he looks back at you and gives a small smile as you part ways and you enter your class. You teacher says good morning and you nod and say good morning as you take your seat in the front of the class and you get your pad of paper out and get ready to take notes. You have also noticed since you are at the top of the class that there are either kids who really look up to you, ask you for homework help, or those that hate you for whatever reason but you just ignore the latter.

 

The bell has rung and you get you pencil at the ready and the teacher starts the slideshow and you take your notes in the best way you know how and the best way you understand the material.

 

***

 

Before long school is over and you‘re making your way back to your bus. You sit down in the usual seat and you see Karkat coming unto the bus and you scoot over as he sits next to you.

 

“So, why don’t you have a girlfriend yet Kan?” He asks as he puts his book bag in his lap and he pulls out his iPod getting it turned on.

 

“What brought this up so suddenly Karkat?” You say as you look at him shifting your book bag over to your other knee and then laying it down on the ground finally. He doesn’t usually ever ask you questions like this, he knows you have a vow of celibacy and that you aren’t going to break it. You wear very, very high waist pants even-which you have been made fun of for since about four years ago but you just ranted to them and they eventually stopped. That’s one thing you liked about being able to persuade people with your rants and lectures: they will see the error of their ways and that you always know what you want and they soon leave it alone.

 

“Well, I saw Kanaya’s older sister with some boy and it made me wonder why you don’t have a girlfriend. You like girls don’t you Kan?”

 

“Well of course Karkat. That is a very, and this is an understatement, personal question that you shouldn’t ask someone in a public places or rather a setting like this.” You say as you look around but others aren’t really paying attention. You were about to say more but Karkat already has his ear bud in and is holding the other out for you as he is already picking a song. You sigh and just put it in your ear and you can’t wait to get home and just calm down a bit. It was a stressful day at school, what with winter break coming up fast all of your teachers are loading you up with projects and papers and they of course are expecting your very best. In short, you don’t have time to slack.

 

It isn’t long before you get home and you both walk off the bus and you march in toward your house. Karkat gets there first and he opens the door. As soon as you get in you don’t see your mother waiting for the two of you. This scene seems off immediately but you suppose Karkat didn’t really notice because he seems to have just taken his shoes off. You put your hand on his shoulder to stop him before he goes any farther and he looks at you as he’s putting his iPod in his pocket.

 

“What’s wrong Kan?” He says very confused and looking up at you with worried eyes since he sees the seriousness in your face.

 

“Follow me.” You say as you keep your shoes on, regardless right now that your parents would be angry that your walking in the house with them on. You move into the side room with the small couch and the chair and a few antique pieces your father collected when he was in college. You then see your mother and you hear some sort of noise. You move closer to her and you see her hands in her face and there is a letter on the end table.

 

*Cries and sobbing*

 

You move closer to her and you sit down on the couch next to her and hug her. You don’t have to look at the letter to know it’s about your dad. There isn’t any questioning it. You see your bother coming now with tears in his eyes and you bite the inside of your lip as you stroke your mothers arm in your hug. Your brother moves to the arm of the chair and he cries with her.

 

 From this point on you have to be the role model of your brother. Your mother of course gets better but she will never be as happy as she once was. She is missing her true shine. Ever since that day you wish you could have been more for her even though she told you you were. She cried as you left for college (which you took a year off just for your mother and brother to help them), stroking your face saying quietly, ‘Just like your father’. Your brother then punched you lightly on the shoulder and congratulating you. You tell him that you’ll see him in a few years on campus. You both grew over the fact that your father died especially after college and you both ended up living together. You still are more worried about your moving, but you think it’s only right because you were always taking care of your mother and brother before this time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope Gamzee's scene is okay? x'D
> 
> Edit: this was really long so I decided to make another chapter.
> 
> Kudos, comments or both are more than welcome! :)


	10. Your Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tavros goes home only to sleep and leave again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this semicrazy chapter compared to the last!

Chapter 10: Your Best Friend

 

==> Be Tavros

 

You awake somewhat groggily, stretch and do the regular waking up routine and you get out of the hospital bed. You first notice that you no longer have a nightgown on and then you notice all of the lights are off in your room. There doesn’t seem to be anyone in the room with you. You mark this off as slightly strange but you think it’s okay because you must have been dismissed. You didn’t have any trouble getting out of the bed and standing on your anyways now.

 

You make your way out of the room and the whole floor is pretty quiet and lonely until you get up to the reception desk.  Then you notice that there are some nurses on duty but they seem to be too preoccupied with their magazines. That doesn’t really bother you because it’s not like you need anything now that you’ve been discharged and free to go. Just a bill will come for you the next few days.

 

A yawn stiffly comes out of your mouth and throat as you are going down the stairs. You rub an eye with the back of your hand and you walk out of the hospital. With every one of the staff too busy to notice you leaving, but like you thought, you’re going to be getting a bill anyways and all they really want is your money and your well-being. Maybe in that order.

 

Wow, you must really hate hospitals or something. Not that this is the first time you’ve been in one. You seem to hurt your legs and back quite a lot and you keep telling yourself you’re going to be a paraplegic before long.  Anyways, you frown as you walk out of the hospital and you shiver as you have forgotten your jacket. Wait, no you didn’t forget it.

 

Gamzee had it.

 

Funny, you don’t even really remember but he must have grabbed it on his way out probably thinking it was his. You didn’t stop him though; you just let him do what he wanted.

 

Just that name brings about huge grey clouds in your head and it makes it hard for you to think. You just keep having the stupid scene play over and over again as you were way too forceful with him. You were so blunt with him, more than you needed to be. You sigh heavily as you wrap your arms around you and you make your way to the bus stop. It must have been about three or four days you were in the hospital but you’re glad you’re all fixed now…but Gamzee…damnnit.

 

***

 

The bus stop is loaded with people waiting and chattering excitedly but in hushed tones (you wondered of course for a split second what was on their minds but you just didn’t feel like listening in or asking in your state of mind). They too were waiting for the warm bus and the protection it gave them and yourself from this chilly November air. After all, there was snow on the ground and luckily your shoes were already on your feet as well. That would be awkward to walk out in the snow with no shoes or socks. You don’t feel like getting close with people as you see your best friend, your only best friend, frown in your mind. It’s just a sharp pin prick that keeps jabbing your brain and you can’t help but feel terrible over the whole ordeal. You feel like a shitty friend beyond anyone you have ever met, even shittier than Karkat when he’s in one of his worst moods.

 

As you think these things the bus comes and you completely zone out until you’re the last one in line for the bus and you just walk yourself all the way to the back of the bus and plop a sit. Plop a sit? Now you even sound like him. You sigh again at the revelation and you just bow your head and shove your frozen hands in your pockets and close your eyes. You know when your stop is anyways and all of the bus drivers know you.

 

The fifth stop came and you open your eyes and you notice you’re about to your apartment complex so you stay awake as much as possible. You feel this sudden tug on you, telling you to just fall asleep forever that way you don’t have to deal with all of the stress of being a terrible friend, but that won’t happen.

 

This feeling doesn’t go away as you sluggishly get off the bus, not really picking up your feet and the sudden urge to crash on your bed is inherent.

 

***

 

You find that your keys are in your mailbox, someone must have been nice enough to leave them in the frickin’ open for someone to just take. You just aggregately shrug this action off as you slip the key inside, too lazy to turn on any lights as you make your way to your room and fall asleep on the bed. You still think of your best friend and how upset he must be.

 

That night however you dream again of falling. Such a long fall it must be because you’re able to freak out, and feel anger and then accept your death all pretty well in a good amount of time.

 

*SPLASH CRASH!*

 

These are the sounds you hear as you feel the rain pound on your face as you fall to the ground, this time however there isn’t anyone, no Gamzee, no Karkat, no one. Not even the shadow up above looking down at you trying to help you. You choke on the air that you do not have in your lungs and you pass out.

 

Waking up, you of course hear the water dripping from your ceiling. Only it seems to have grown since your hospital visit. You groan loudly into a pillow you have over your face as you lie on your back with the sheets sprawled everywhere probably from chaotic sleep movements. You calm down and notice you at least aren’t sweating again but you feel angry because Eridan is at the hospital so you will have put off the water thing for now.

 

*Drip Drip Drip…drip….*

 

The sound gets quieter as it helps lull you back to sleep and you then dream of Gamzee and yourself when you were younger, at that river you two used to always go to, fishing, swimming, and just having fun as each other’s best friends.

 

***

 

*Chirp chirp coo*

 

These are the sounds you wake up to instead of your alarm clock.

 

What the hell?

 

Well you don’t even know what day it is anyways…it has been a good three or four days since you’ve been in your home and in any shape to work anyways. You do your normal waking up stuff and then you get a shower. The warm water pounding on your head keeps from a stress headache from forming any farther than just a first stage. You drip out of the shower and dry yourself off a bit then wrap the towel around your waist and you fix your Mohawk a bit before leaving the restroom. You make your way to the kitchen and this is when you notice things are very dusty from none use but you’ll clean this up later. For now you get your coffee started and you yawn off the sleep and make a cup once it’s finished. You make your way to the living room and just sit down on your couch with just your coffee and a towel around you.

 

*Bzzz bzzzt bzzt*

 

Where is that noise coming from? It sounds fairly faint and it doesn’t sound to be very close to your vicinity right at the moment. You stand up and try to listen in on the sound again; at least it’s taking your mind off of your troubling thoughts for a moment.

 

You step closer to your entertainment center…

 

*BBZzt Bzzt*

 

Okay so you’re getting closer…you then walk over to the right of the entertainment center to see if this buzzing thing is behind it and as you get ready to crouch down you can tell then by the buzzing that it is origin is on the other side of the wall.

 

That would only put it outside of your apartment, floating?? No way. You quickly open your door not really caring about your half profane towel drapery at the moment and you look to your left, and you notice your mailbox.

 

*BBZZT BZZTT BBZ-*

 

Your eyes get wide as the noise stops, but it sounds like…

 

Your phone! You quickly put your hand in the mailbox and sure enough there it is saying you have a missed call as you press the power button for the screen to show up. You type in your password as you turn back into your apartment and close the door and lock it. You move to the couch and set your coffee down, since you hadn’t drunk it yet and you look at your phone.

 

“2 missed calls from Karkat Vantas (KK)” the screen prompts at you.

 

Well, that’s weird, why would he be calling you at…oh, well at least you know it’s the weekend now thanks to your phone, so you won’t be late for work good. You press on Karkat’s name and it brings up his contact info, you press call and you hold the phone up to your ear. You aren’t really sure why you do this seeing to you’re not in much of a mood to talk but since he’s called twice in a row. It seems to be something of importance.

 

*Ring ring ring..ring ri-*

 

His first words are, “Oi, fuckass, what took you so damn long to call me back?? Oh fuck it; have you seen the news yet? If not turn your fucking TV on to the news.”

 

“Uhh…okay?...”you say as you fumble around on the coffee table for your remote and you turn the TV on but it comes up as static. Oh great, did you forget to pay it or something? You sigh in frustration and tell Karkat. “My TV for whatever reason isn’t working right now.”

 

“Well fuck, Gamzee is in police custody right now.”

 

“What? Why?...” you ask in somewhat of worry but the name just gave another pang of hurt. Not that Gamzee hasn’t been in trouble before, he has, it just feels different for some reason this time and you’re about to find why.

 

“Because…” Karkat pauses and he lets out a slow breath before continuing. “He was found with blood all over him and his clothes just the other night; they just found him a few hours ago. I knew you were home today because the hospital said they haven’t seen you in your room and that you’ve been discharged a bit ago. I just wanted you to know.” He sounds really hurt and kind of confused just as you’re feeling.

 

“Thanks.” Is all that you can muster out as you hear Karkat then say something along the lines of “bad Pixie” away from the phone, and then hit end and the line go dead?

 

You shut the screen off with the power button and you set it down shakily.

 

 Blood?

 

This has to be some kind of mistake…he was prone to being outside a lot, did he hurt someone else or did he hurt himself? Karkat was really vague but maybe the news was vague and they couldn’t really specify too much since the police had just found him. He must either be freaking out or completely relaxed right now, you feel this swirl of guilt and other bad emotions well up in your stomach and you feel punched in the gut as you fall down on the couch.

 

Your breath has been knocked out of you and you start to feel a bit dizzy so you close your eyes but that only seems to intensify it so you open your eyes. You can’t help now but think what the fuck happened the other night?  You put a hand to a temple to try to calm yourself and your thoughts. This goes with little success however as you just keep thinking of Gamzee looking at your with innocent eyes and blood soaking thorough his clothes. If only you had kept him the hospital maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe if you would have told him you liked him too he wouldn’t have done this to himself, or hopefully not to someone else.

 

A huge frown appears on your face and your eyebrows knit together as you start to think over in your head what Gamzee could have done. You half wish your TV could work so you could view the report and the other half of you doesn’t because you don’t want to see anything. You get up and you keep going back in forth arguing with yourself in your head if you should even think about that man right now.

 

 You walk to your room and unconsciously you pull on a lazy day long sleeve shirt and some jeans that are stiff because you hardly ever wear informal clothes anymore. This is all because you don’t have many and your job doesn’t allow for them. You then pull on socks and comb a hand through your hair as you brush your teeth and then you get some combat boots on. You pull on a heavy jacket from the back of your closet. It somehow still fits and it smells a bit musty but you just forget about this and you then take a swig of your now cold coffee and you’re out the door locking it behind you.

 

***

 

The police station is loud and many officers are either typing up records around the two sides of the hallway or they’re making faxes or things that you do at your work actually. It makes you glad you’re on weekend break right now and you feel the anxiety fill your lungs as you make your way to the end of the hall where the main holding cell officer is behind his desk. He doesn’t seem to have noticed you because you see he is still looking down at his papers shuffling them around.

 

Before you get a word in you hear him mumble something such as, it’s unlocked. You look over and notice the door to your right were they hold people is in fact open already. You shrug at your luck and the weirdness that the door is open but then you understand, there is a police officer not far behind you going to the door now and he looks back at you for a brief second with questioning eyes before he just nods and walks into the doorway. You hurry in after him and just in time too, the door closes behind you.

 

You then start to look in the different cells and you smell urine, throw up, and alcohol. You hear people snoring, some going to the bars looking over at people trying to get them out and others talking amongst each other. This is when you aren’t seeing Gamzee and you wonder if he’s back here. Then you hear someone talking loudly and as you get closer to the end of the hall. They are honking and they seem to be talking to themselves. You can’t mistake the honks anywhere except for Gamzee. You speed walk closer to the sound and sure enough there is your best friend sitting with a leg to his chin, arm around it, and the other curled under him. You see what Karkat meant; there is blood all over his clothes. Big drops all over his arms and hands and his hair is even matted with it in some areas. His hair is a mess and isn’t back in a ponytail, so its defying gravity and is in a huge curly black and red mess.

 

Then his head turns your way and you see sharp fangs protruding from his upper lip and you see his eyes area light shade of purple. He has claw marks all along his face probably from his own doing. The jagged claw marks all over his eyes and just everywhere around his face. His clown makeup is all askew and some of it is completely wiped off in some areas. He then notices you are standing there and his lop sided smile returns from the evil looking scowl he had. His eyes turn a light shade of almost periwinkle and he honks at you. You blink as you see this sudden change in him and you aren’t really sure what to think. The next thing you notice is he’s standing up in front of you as fast as lightening flashing with his tall wiry frame and his strange eyes looking into yours.

 

“I MOTHERFUCKING knew you would come for me brother.” He says with his same extremely low voice but he has lost his amazement type of tone. His breath smells like rancid meat. No, like cigarettes mixed with the metallic smell of blood only it was so powerful you could almost taste this blood in your own mouth.

 

You’re taken aback of this sudden movement and him speaking and you just blink. You also get some sort of flinch movement going on with your hands as you raise them a bit then lower them. You are then able to see the caked blood all over his face and you notice as you look him over, at this close proximity, that he must have hurt someone because the blood looks like it was splattered all over him. This really freaks you out and you take a step back.

 

You aren’t able to say anything and you hear him speak up again. “Goddamn motherfucking I won’t BITE YOU.” He says as he leans his head against the bars. “I missed at my MOTHERFUCKER.”

 

You swallow and you just feel your spine tingle and you step back a bit more until you realize you’re in the middle of the hallway and you just give a small scared smile and you turn toward the door. You bolt out as fast as you can without making a scene, but that’s too late. Gamzee is screaming now grabbing the bars and screaming loudly. You hear footsteps approach behind you and a police officer comes in from the door you’re headed to. They ignore you as they make their way to Gamzee and you bolt out of the police station as fast as you can, wanting to go home and forget everything that had happened. Wanting to curl up with a blanket in your living room on your soft couch and watch Peter Pan fly, fly forever away from anything evil. You brace yourself for the cold as you feel warm tears fall down and you can’t help but let out a sob as you go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Tavros...


	11. Where You Become Even More Depressed And Scared And Someone Goes Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You go into a slight depression form the events and you receive even more news of what happened with Gamzee. This mysterious person goes inside Tavros' apartment and more plot is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy this chapter with all of the switching of characters haha :)

Chapter 11: Where You Become Even More Depressed And Scared And Someone Goes Missing

 

The next thing you know is you’re on a train. You are not sure at all of where you are going but you decide that it is best to just ride and keep your mind off the things you have just seen. Gamzee’s face runs through your mind and you heart starts to palpitate quite fast. Your senses doubly increase and you start checking around after you to see if he’s caught up with you. After checking and being scared out of your wits you hit the request stop button on the bus and as the bus stops a girl cuts in front of you and you get off after her.

 

You notice then that you’re in front of Karkat’s and Kankri’s apartment complex. Since Karkat did tell you about Gamzee and you’re already here you might as well go in and tell him the news so you can calm the fuck down.

 

You climb up the steps to his floor no problem and actually the steps seemed to help blow off some steam and you become bit calmer now. You get to his door and knock and you hear the click of a lock and the door opens. You must look like you’re tired, worn out, and scared because Karkat’s usual scowl isn’t present on his face. He just ushers you in and you sit down on his couch rubbing your now sweating palms on your jeaned knees.

 

Karkat sits down on the couch cushion next to you and has his body slightly turned towards you as he looks at you with some concern. “So what the fuck happened Tavros?” he says in calmed voice but you can see his eyes aren’t as calm.

 

“Gamzee…” you swallow hard as you try not to picture and hear his voice and face. “I saw him at the police station…he was…covered in blood…” you feel your hair rise on your arms and all over your face before you continue. “…and he uh….had…um…his eyes were a purple color…he…he didn’t seem like the Gamzee we know…” You frown and your eyes are as scared as ever as you look over at Karkat and he’s listening intently. He was nodding as you say you went to the police station, but after you said purple eyes he stopped and just looked at you.

 

“Purple…eyes? Are you sure you weren’t just seeing things Tavros? You seem pretty disturbed right now.” He soothing voice calms you down a bit before you say anything more.

 

“Yes, I’m positive. I saw purple irises which then turned into a periwinkle…he was saying something to me but I couldn’t make all of it out. I just ran out of there in…well…some stupid way. I was so terrified. I can’t…umm…my best friend, I can’t see him like that…” you trail off and your eyes move to your lap as your mouth’s edges pull down into a frown. Right now you’re just trying to think of other things, but it was good to tell Karkat what was going on especially since he really had no idea. And he was a doctor-who specialized in listening to problems and stress.

 

“Hmm…well I know you don’t like me to use my shrink methods on you, but if you ever want me to I can help, especially since this seems to have if nothing else slightly traumatized you. I can sort of expect that since you really don’t watch any sort of movies with unsuspecting twists or anything really in your life is like that. So you’re just not really used to that kind of unexpected element to happen.” He explains as he asks you if you want a drink and you say yes as he walks into the kitchen and you hear him pouring some liquid in two cups.

 

You then notice as you look up from the noise of Karkat’s footsteps that Kankri is sitting in the chair over on the other side of the wall. He seems to be looking at you with a frown but he doesn’t say anything, to your astonishment. He usually always has something to say but I guess not today hmm? Anyways, you look up as there is now a cup hovering over to the left of your head and you grab it and look down at the drink after whispering your thanks. It’s just clear regular water so you take a swig and after it burns you realize that it isn’t water. Knowing Karkat, you should have thought it was Vodka, but your over worked brain didn’t even process this. After all this was how he calmed himself.

 

Karkat is just looking at you and notices you almost choke on the alcohol. He just gives an annoyed grumble before saying, “What did you think? That I wasn’t going to give you some kind of alcoholic beverage? You really need to learn more about your good friend fucking Tavros Nitram.” He says as he swallows down a mouthful and he sets down the cup. You see Kankri shift in his seat and your eyes look over at him. He is in his long, nice, warm sweater but he isn’t looking at Karkat. He’s looking right at you.

 

You frown at this and you set down the mug on the end table next to you. You aren’t sure why he’s giving you such a weird awkward glance, but he isn’t looking at you again once you look back up at him. You just dismiss this as you do most things and you tell Karkat you’re sorry but you can’t stay. You really should probably be heading home and you can’t possibly have him the burden of you staying at his place on a Saturday. As you leave and say your thanks again he says as you go out “If you want me to do an evaluation or anything let me know and we can try to get you some medication if you need it”. You just nod and wave as you walk down the hallway and out of his view.

 

 You aren’t going to be taking any medicine and you aren’t afraid of your friend really, but more of what you saw. You keep telling yourself that that isn’t Gamzee and everyone knows that. You walk out into the cold night and wait for a bus with a few others at the bus stop, but they too ignore you as you just look down at your feet anyways thinking about your best friend. At the last minute before you climb the bus you however decide to walk home to keep your mind off of everything.

 

***

 

==>  ???

 

You walk up to the desk but you only hear someone coughing in the background. You hear footsteps and know someone is coming to assist you.

 

“Hello, how can I help you?” an annoyed voice says from the desk.

 

“I’m looking for room number 214, I believe Tavros Nitram is the owner of this apartment, correct?”

 

“Yeah, whaddya want with that guy?” The voice asks not talking to you but more just to talk.

 

“I need access into his room.”

 

“Sorry, that ain’t gonna happen.” The annoyance seems to be more prominent here now in her voice. You seem to have pissed her off even more.

 

“Well I’ll just have to show you why I’m here then.” You say as you pull out your wallet.

 

==>  Be Gamzee

 

You open your eyes and you notice that you’re now outside of the police department and the sun has really been fucking bright. That doesn’t really surprise you too much though since you’ve been cooped up in that motherfucking place all day. You feel refreshed and you’re glad you don’t have anything to worry about now. You breathe in the good air and you start your walk toward your apartment.

 

Tavros keeps flashing in your mind but you can’t put a finger on why he looked so scared. You try to think on this but instead you go back to thinking on how you were to get home. Then you see the bus go by and you look up and you see in the window Tavros sitting. Your eyes follow the fleeting figure until he passes your view completely and your smile is a bit smaller now but nonetheless it’s still there.

 

You remember you were feeling really bad and those motherfuckers of black shadows were following you and they got into your eyes and then that voice. You shiver at the thought, you can’t remember much past that. Your eyes light up, the river you remember that too. You decide it’s best to go home after looking at the river to see if there are any clues as to what happened to you. People stare at you as you go but you don’t really mind it. People stared at you even if you were just wearing your clown makeup. You know you have scratched yourself but that isn’t a big deal. Any motherfucker would tear at their eyes to get the shadows out.

 

==> Be Tavros

 

As you’re walking home your phone vibrates twice meaning you have a text, so you whip out your phone and you get a message from Karkat, you enter your password in and go to messages and hit the tile.

 

“Tavros, Gamzee got out scott free from the rampage, he killed Nepeta, just about killed Eridan and killed a few innocent bystanders. Sollux just told me the news it must have just been on TV because I flipped to the news channels but they aren’t showing anything anymore. Sollux also said the reason why was because of his father and the Makara name. They have power over the police and there wasn’t any way he was going to go to stay in prison. Fucking Nepeta, I can’t believe she’s dead that fucking clown. Fuck this shit, if you get any drunk texts from me tonight ignore them.”

 

You just look at the message stopped in your tracks and you really don’t know what to make of it. You feel sobs coming but you hold them back and let tears fall instead, at least until you get into your apartment.

 

You get in and you lock the door and do the same routine as yesterday, you just fall into your bed only this time you cover up with the blanket and sheets and cry your heart out until you pass out from exhaustion.

 

***

 

The next day the only reason why you get out of your bed and the comfort it gave you was to eat, shower, use the restroom and change shirts. You change shirts since the other seemed to have snot marks from your crying last night. You feel like shit and that you don’t even exist in any way, shape or form but you go back to sleep once you notice it gets dark and you cry a bit more over what your friend has done. Over all of the nightmares you have now and Nepeta even though you didn’t know her, you knew she was close with Karkat. Your life was falling apart before your eyes, but you couldn’t miss any more days of work so you sleep and get ready for the next day.

 

Nothing eventful happens at work.

 

No one really pays any attention to you except you get hateful and mean messages in your email from Vriska calling you a wuss and a stupid shit who is too afraid to grow up. A shithole who is too weak and just about dies from falling out of chair among other very hateful and threatening emails. You just ignore the others that come in and do your work and then you go home and you snuggle on the couch with your favorite comforter and sigh.

 

 

==>  ???

 

You are finally allowed access to Tavros Nitram’s apartment and you take the elevator and press the number two with the two dots sticking out on the button. As the elevator chimes you walk out and you walk down what seems to be a long hallway. You easily find his apartment because of the vacant smell reeking from it. You can smell the unused dust everywhere right outside the door. No food or any kind of recent human activity smell whatsoever lingers out of the door. You put your hand on the doorknob and turn it, it easily opens after you use the key and you walk inside.

 

You’re hit with the overwhelming smell of dust and some sort of decay? You’re not really sure about the last word but you end up in the kitchen. You still can’t get over how much dust there is. It’s like someone has not been in here for a while and this bothers you. You glide your fingers along the counter to find dust collected on them and you wipe them off and move on to the living room. You have to check every room for any evidence that could be hidden away.

 

*Beep beep*

 

Hmm who’s calling you now?

 

You pick up your phone and your boss sounds pretty upset but you tell him you’re in Tavros’ apartment now. He says to hurry up because they have to get as many clues to this as possible.  You say yes and then he hangs up, sheesh was he rude or what?

 

Anyways, you move over toward a noise you hear and you end up in the bedroom.

 

*Drip drip…drip drip*

 

Wasn’t there something about the water problem when you last spoke to Eridan? Didn’t Tavros ask him to fix it anyways? You understand the situation what with him in the hospital and all but if Tavros asked a bit ago when the hell hasn’t he bothered to fix it? This doesn’t have anything to do with the missing persons and you need to see if you can find Tavros now. It seems like he has not been in his apartment for a while. This then too starts to worry you and you leave the apartment after you find nothing of interest except for the fact that his apartment is vacant and dusty. Looks like another hard day at the office.

 

==> Be Karkat

 

Your day at the job was really boring. You get home and you see your brother Kankri is already sitting nice and neat on the chair reading the newspaper. Again with more marriage failings and children’s parents who say “it’s just because they have low self-esteem” bullshit that you always hear. He always seems to fucking happy and you’re really tired of his high horse shit. You just slam down your folder of cases and you go into the kitchen and get a cold bottle of Vodka out of the freezer and pour yourself a few shots in a glass and sit down on the couch with a hefty sigh.

 

You absent mindedly run your fingers through your hair and you try to unwind with your Vodka as you feel the same burning sensation run down your throat and into your stomach. It feels nice to have a drink and wind down from a hard day at work, except when you have your brother glaring you down.

 

“What is the problem Kankri?” You ask. You are agitated but you decide not to project your anger unto your brother.

 

He has his arms crossed now as he has laid down the newspaper in his lap and he just looks at you for a second before saying anything.

 

“First of all,” And then you know you shouldn’t have asked.

 

To spare you this huge lecture we will just skep to the end.

 

“…and then as the lady down the hall was yelling by your loud brutishness in the morning that you always seem to have, for reasons beyond me, your dog decided it was best to explore a bit and before I knew anything she was gone and out the door. I tried to stop her and I even went into the lobby to see if anyone had seen Pixie but no one was able to spot to her, so I came back up here and I texted you about her leaving but you did not respond. How irresponsible of you not to even respond when it’s your dog that you should be caring about, of all things I really find your lack of interest quite triggering and I for one-“

 

You stop Kankri by saying, “Pixie is missing? I didn’t even feel or hear my phone go off and besides Kankri you know I cannot have my phone on while I have patients.” You set down you cup on the end table and you really are worried now. Your dog, sweet Pixie is gone and now you have no idea where she is and this world is a big world and someone could pick her up and take her or she could get hit by a car… You really don’t want to think down that road so you take out your cell phone and call the only person who is alive that knows about your pet.

 

You growl as you hear the ringing for a bit and then someone picks up.

 

“Hello? KK whath up?” Sollux answers somewhat in a nasty mood but he then calms down at the end of the sentence.

 

“Pixie is gone and I need your help. I swear who knows what could have happened to her and now that Nepeta is dead, well…she’s the only thing remind me of her…” You say the last part quietly and you only feel sorrow now instead of anger towards the clown. You can only feel terrible that your friend died, and you have been thinking a bit about her as well lately.

 

You have not told anyone this but, you really miss her a lot and you feel bad you weren’t such a good friend to her as well. You actually have been thinking about her more than Sollux, and you try to dismiss this feeling but you wonder if you feel more of just a friendly way towards Sol and a more romantic feeling towards Nepeta. She always was so nice to you and she always knew how to cheer you up. Yeah you had a slip up with the weird daydreaming about Nepeta but- this isn’t the time to be thinking about this and you are brought back to reality as you hear Sollux speak up.

 

“Okay, well how about thith KK, why don’t we go and look for the dog?” He says waiting for you to respond which you weight it in your head before answering.

 

“Well Kankri already did and he said he couldn’t find her anywhere. There really isn’t much of point to go look for her now Sollux. No one in the apartment lobby has seen her and Kankri saw her go down the stairs and that’s the only place she could go unless someone took her something worse happened to her…” You say and you voice trails off you still think of the puppy and Nepeta holding her up to you with a huge smile on her face. You have a few memories go around your head as she pounces on you playfully and you laugh a bit.

 

“Well then, I don’t know KK if you don’t want to go look for her then there ithn’t much elth we can do other than lotht dog flyerth.”

 

Kankri then stands up and decides to speak out on this event before you get a chance to speak back in reply to Sollux.

 

Sollux at this time can hear Kankri’s voice reach to his ear puts the phone away from his ear and goes to work on something else and will decide to check back in a few minutes.

 

“Well this dog seems to be very important to you Karkat, so maybe you should reconsider this move. I in fact think that Sollux has a good idea of us going outside and looking for her since that has not been done yet. I really think it would be in your best interest to go look for her, and I also wanted to apologize for losing her like that, it was very stupid of me to open the door like that while talking to a neighbor.” He seems truly upset and he even apologized without getting on with some other pet peeve that he has. Kankri really has seemed to have changed and for the better for sure. This spurs a new action inside of you as you smile to your brother and go back to your phone.

 

“Sollux, you can come back to the phone now.” You say as you wait for him and you hear him mutter something along the lines of, ‘well that was fast’ and you tell him you are all going to meet at your place. You’re going to go looking around the apartment first and then slowly spread out looking for Pixie, she was in danger and maybe even shaking and cold and you weren’t about to just stand by and just watch this happen. She was a pet that your best friend, no, your crush had given to you and you weren’t about to let the last present you have received from Nepeta go in vein of her death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos, comments and such let me know you like this story :D


	12. In Which They Meet Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tavros (you) still feels pretty upset about everything but he decides to take up Gamzee's offer and meet him at his apartment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Purely GamTavish chapter :)
> 
> Tavros is your miracle/you're Gamzee's miracle. xD

Chapter 12: In Which They Meet Up

 

==> Be Tavros

 

You are still in your apartment and you are very tired all of the time what with everything that has happened with you best friend and someone who is good friends with Karkat was killed. You’ve definitely had some time to think and you knew that Gamzee wasn’t always stable and you cannot really blame him for going crazy what with how his family was to him and what he grew up with. However, even though you don’t really blame him for everything that has happened and you more than anything feel bad for him, you still have doubts running through your mind.

 

Your tears will not come out and your eyes seem to be too dry from all the crying you’ve done. So instead you start to think, you think about Gamzee and why he hasn’t been acting normally and why he even killed Nepeta. You are worried about how he ended up like that and you’re worried you’ve lost the only person you’ve truly been connected with. You start to feel very tired and you don’t want to think anymore.

 

 Just as you get ready to doze off after thinking of the nasty things that had happened you phone buzzes twice, a text.

 

You look at it and it’s from Gamzee. Your heart races but you open up the message anyways. Your hands are almost shaking as you read his text.

 

“Hey brother, sorry about all not up and texting your or shit. Been to really motherfucking busy and all at that. Just was all wondering if you’d want at coming over to my apartment place tomorrow.”

 

You really don’t know what to say to his message, in fact you just stare at the message as the screen blackens and you continue to think.

 

You’re really surprised with yourself; you actually have wanted to tell Gamzee you’ve been worried about him and that he has frightened you. You want to help him. You feel bad for him and you truly worry for him and that’s what has been in the back of your head for a bit but you don’t really know how to tell him. You decide not to text this to him, but instead you decide to meet up with him at his apartment tomorrow.

 

“Sure, when will be a good time for you?” You type this in the message box and as soon as you hit send not a minute later he responds.

 

“Just when the motherfucking ever brother. Honk :o)”

 

“Okay, so tomorrow afternoon okay?”

 

You don’t get a text back and you assume that’s a yes.

 

You also take this time while your phone is out to text Aradia back. At this point and time with everything going on in your life, with your best friend’s problems, and everything you tell her to cancel dinner plans for this weekend since you couldn’t  last weekend.

 

You feel this heavy weight upon your shoulders but you really aren’t sure on how to act or behave or even think about everything.

 

So you start thinking about how you have a mean bully at work now who even decided to take all of your pens (which weren’t cheap) and your chair a few times too. Then you have the now crazy best friend whom you have been friends with for as long as you can remember, they’ve always been there for you and now you haven’t been there for them. You really feel like shit for this and you wish you could just disappear.

 

Dust is still hanging among everything and the air feels stuffy because you still haven’t opened any windows.

 

*Drip drip drip…drip*

 

Oh yeah and the dripping is still going on too, that hasn’t stopped but it can’t be fixed until Eridan comes back from the hospital. Whom you friend also hurt. Your friend Gamzee seems to be the root of a lot of your problems and you really are getting irritated with how everything has been going lately.

 

You lay down on your couch and your brown eyes get teary but you don’t let the tears fall. No use crying anymore. You are a grown man and need to take all of this stress out seriously, you need to do something about how you’re feeling and you need to fix things. You feel like you can’t do much now, but maybe in a few days or something you’ll feel more up to the task. For now you close your eyes too tired to eat or anything else and you just dream little dreams of flying like Peter Pan and of course the nightmare of you falling and being unable to breathe.

 

***

 

*BBZZT Bzztt BZTT-*

 

You hand stops your cellphone at the vibrating alarm on the end table and you mumble grumpily. You definitely didn’t sleep well and you really wish you just weren’t here right now. You don’t bother with any food, you just shower and get dressed for work and head out locking the door along the way and catch a bus for work.

 

==> Be Gamzee

 

You awake with the morning sun all in your face and you move your arm over your eyes as you groan to block it out but since it woke you up in the first place you might as well get up now. You sit up from your napping position (which you are all sprawled out on the couch with your feet hanging off the edge of the couch and you head on the opposite end.) and you swing your feet to hit the floor and you sit up somewhat properly on the couch.

 

Pie tins, horns, Faygo bottles and a few other things such as plates of food and such are scattered about on the floor and on furniture. You remember that Tavros is coming over to your place today so you should at least clean up a little bit, you know that motherfucker lives pretty clean and you don’t want to have him be all up and uncomfortable.

 

Speaking of Tavros as you get up you start to think about how happy you were to see that he texted you and that he wanted to see you. You were really glad when you saw him on the bus, even though he did not notice you, and you wanted to apologize for everything that you had done and hoped he still wanted to be friends at least.

 

You pick up your trash here and there and throw it away in the trash can until finally there isn’t any trash left in the main rooms. You think about doing your bedroom, which is even worse off, but you decide against it. You then rearrange the couch a bit so it’s facing the TV instead of the wall. You don’t watch much TV but if Tavros stays a bit more than when you talk to him you want him to be able to watch a movie with the little brother or something.

 

You pick up your phone and press the power button and notice that you have a message and it that it is about three in the afternoon.

 

“Okay, so tomorrow afternoon okay?”

 

This message is from your wicked brother who is coming over today, you do not remember when he gets off his work and all that shit so you just go into your small bathroom, take off your clothes, get the hot water running on the shower and get in and clean yourself off a bit. You are a bit nervous about him coming over but who wouldn’t be?

 

You step out and just put a purple towel over your head as you shake and ruffle your mess of hair as dry as you can and as you leave the towel on your head your dripping wet body walks over to your room casually and you find a pair of boxers, pajama pants and a baggy t-shirt laying on the floor. You smell them and they smell somewhat better than most of the clothes on the floor so you just shrug, remove the towel from your head and pull your clothes on.

 

Now you just have to wait for that little motherfucker to get here and then you’ll explain everything to him. You think about how you told him you really liked him and he said he didn’t feel the same way and it sort of really upset you and run a hand through your hair and just sigh. You find yourself getting close to a small line of a mouth and you just return it with a smile and you prepare to see Tavros Nitram. He is your best motherfucking friend in this whole mirthful place of living and miracles. Yeah, he was your miracle for sure.

 

*Brrinng riinnngg*

 

This sound scares the shit out of you as you jump in place and you feel the sound running through you. You look around to see if someone was here with some kind of messed up alarm clock or some sicknasty pranking be up in this shit but you don’t see any such a thing.

 

*Brrinnngg brriinng riinnng*

 

You look around and then you go and grab a club from you room and you go sneakily around looking for the cause of this blasphemous noise. You then think maybe it’s your cell phone so you walk over to it while dragging your feet but once you press the power button you notice that no one or nothing has done anything to it or send you anything also.

 

You clench your jaw and you almost laugh at this. Tavros said he was coming so, after a minute of thinking you put your club back and after the noise sounds again you know what this ridic noise be. The mirthful doorbell which you having not hear in a long time and you walk over to your door and you open the portal that leads out of your apartment.

 

“Motherfucking brother!” you say as you hold your arms out and wide with a large lop sided smile on your face. You then look and see who’s at your door and that cute little old lady be up and to your door.

 

“Here Gamzee, this was sent to my door and I know it’s not mine.” She says as she just gives you a small smile holding a small package wrapped in some sort of meat wrapping paper. You take it and smile back at her.

 

“Well thanks for helping a motherfucker out, tight of ya to do that.” You say as you see her walk down the hallway with her cane and you close your door and absent mindedly set down the package on the kitchen counter. You sit down on the couch and you can’t sit still, hopping your leg up and down and you notice the noise.

 

*BBZZt BBZZTT*

 

Text message for your legit ass.

 

You pick up your phone and tap on the message and see it’s from Tavros.

 

“I’ll be heading over to your place now if that’s okay.”

 

You feel your smile become quite large as you press the keys and send your reply to him.

 

“Yeah that would be a motherfucking sweet deal brother.”

 

“Alright I’ll see you soon.”

 

You put your phone down after reading his message and you get up and you comb your fingers through your hair and you go to the bathroom to put on a bit of deodorant and try to fix your bitchtits hair what can’t be calmed the motherfuck down.

 

 

==> Be Tavros

 

You text Gamzee to tell him you’re on your way and after seeing his text you look back up as you put your phone back in your jacket pocket. The bus is full of people and it kind of bothered you a bit as they were looking at you funnily but they seem to have gotten over that quite fast as they are not acknowledging you.

 

The bus is getting closer to Gamzee’s apartment complex now and you’re actually starting to get a bit nervous.You don’t know why but your palms start to sweat and you get this little nervous ticking in your head. Maybe it’s because you now know that he is okay but you want to make sure but you also don’t want to get killed in the process. You have a flash back of his shouting at your and the blood cover skin and clothes looking back at you. You breathe in a gulp of oxygen and swallow it trying to calm yourself down a bit and it helps until you notice that you are at the stop and someone has already pressed the button before you.

 

You swallow as you stand up and get off the bus after the man does and you head to the main lobby and you take the stairs to the tenth floor. Frickin sucks you don’t like elevators but stairs aren’t all that bad and they’re actually good for you. Good exercise and whatnot. You make it up to the number ten with little trouble at all, since you’re pretty adept to climb long stairs now with your job and you push open the heavy wooden door. The long hallway is, well, long and a little under lighted but that’s because this building is much older than yours. You remember, Gamzee has run down appliances from the management that had them in his apartment, and sometimes his electricity didn’t work but of course it didn’t bother him.

 

You get to the middle of the hallway and find the room number you are looking for, 1420. You then knock on the door and you hear some noises faintly on the other side of the heavy door and then you hear Gamzee walking toward the door. Well here it is then, can’t go back now.

 

 You swallow as you hear the door click open and you see your tall 6’5” friend with his piercings still in and a few scratch marks on his face that have since healed over the past few days smiling at you. His eyes are now an even lighter blue and his lop sided grin is the same as when you first talked to him. His clown makeup is on and seems to be pretty freshly applied.

 

“Hello my little motherfucking brother!~” He says with quiet happy amusement in his voice. You get a flash of his dark evil low voice back from his confinement but it soon is pushed out as you see he has started talking again.

 

“-well come on in my legit place.” He motions out of the way of the door so you can walk in which you swallow as you see a flash of blood all around his face. You are not really sure if you would be safe walking in here. You look over and he has those half lidded lazy eyes looking at you with that same smile. You give a small scared smile as you walk in and then you start telling yourself maybe you shouldn’t have come in your head.

 

You walk forward a bit and he closes the door in one quick motion that you wouldn’t expect someone for his disposition to do at that speed. It was so fast in fact that you almost jump, but instead you just start walking over to the couch and you sit down on the end cushion looking around. The room doesn’t have any light except for the window on the other side of the wall and you smell sleep and Faygo in the air. He seemed to have cleaned up since you last came, which has been quite a while and you hear him clatter a bit in the kitchen.

 

“Want anything at drinking for?” He asks as he opens the fridge and his low mystical voice runs to your ears through the small hole in the wall somehow.

 

“Uh…sure, just some water is fine.” You say without thinking and he pulls the tap on and then comes back with your water in a tall red cup and his purple Faygo bottle in his other hand. He sits down on the couch with about half a cushion between you. He seems to have thought carefully about how to sit since you saw him look at the couch for a second before plopping down.

 

*Hisss*

 

You hear the Faygo bottle open up but you look down at your water and take a drink. It tastes actually better than the tap at your place and you smile to yourself from the familiar sound of your childhood friend.

 

“I wanted to-“   “I just wanna-“ you both say these two things at the same time and then you both stop and he looks at you with his smile.

 

“You go first motherfucker.” He says as he takes a swig of his Faygo , starts to put the bottle down on the floor but he puts the cap on after setting it down then he straightens up a bit. He then lazily leans back on the couch and looks at you blinking a bit moving his eyes around your face and your hair.

 

You take your jacket off and then continue. You do not yet notice that Gamzee is looking at you because you are busy moving your water and removing your jacket.

 

“I just wanted to say, you truly scared me when I went and saw you at the police station. And then Karkat told me what happened, I…felt like I was losing my best friend Gamzee..” Your voice falls short as you look up and see his soft eyes on you. You feel your face, for some reason, get a bit warm and you look away ashamed of saying this, but you knew it had to be said.

 

“Well, motherfucker took the words out of my pie hole.”  You feel the low chuckle come from his long body and then he continues blinking and looking at your face as you look up and notice. His face still having his smile but it seems a bit softer and kinder now. “I was going to tell you what legit shit was go down. I feel really bad about that shit, I didn’t even realize which I was doing.” His eyes leave your face and look down with true remorse and confusion.

 

There is a bit of a silence before he continues. “I just really didn’t even fathom that I had done and then I realized what went down and that shit ain’t motherfucking bitchtits okay. I know that, I’m sorry if I made you up and worry about me and I’m sorry for worrying Karkat and killing kitty girl.” A slight frown is now in place of his goofy smiles and he looks at you with his soft eyes that are truly saying he was sorry.

 

“Gamzee, I’m…really glad you’re apologizing and I don’t think you ever did that on purpose. I knew it wasn’t the real you and yeah it did scare me but I’m just really glad to see you’re you again.” You say as you give him a small smile and you no longer see any flashbacks of him or the blood. You’re glad he has apologized this even was a first for him. He usually doesn’t say much and you’re glad he has spoken up. You feel a small weight that has been lifted but you still have something else to tell him.

 

You brown eyes meet his blue grey eyes and you both just smile at each other and he positions himself so he’s face you a bit more. “Thanks brother, I’m glad you ain’t scared of the clown.” He says with a small laugh and he goes down and grabs his Faygo and uncaps it. “This miraculous shit…” He says with amazement undertones in his voice, he looks at the bubbles run up the bottle and he shoves it to you. “Take this miracle and taste the motherfucker.”

 

You laugh as you take the bottle and take a small sip and you feel the carbonation run down your throat and it doesn’t taste too bad. You then hold the bottle by the neck and set it on your leg and look at Gamzee with a serious face on but still a slight smile and a bit of purple stain on your lips now.

 

“I can’t just…” You feel all of the feelings rush at once after the Faygo reaches your stomach the carbonation seemed to float up to your heart and you feel it pounding quite fast. You didn’t ever think this but you suddenly have realized something, you like Gamzee. You like _like_ him. How are you going to tell it to him though? That was of your main concern right at this moment.

 

Gamzee was looking at you with his normal expression on his face and then you become aware that you’re still holding the Faygo bottle. You smile sheepishly as thoughts run through your head and you hand it back to him which he takes with a smile and chugs a big gulp down.

 

Now’s your chance to say something while his guard is down, although it’s nothing bad or much of an attack.

 

However before you can get a word down Gamzee flicks his eyes toward you and in one swift motion before you can even blink to see what happens. He has suddenly filled in the gap between the two of you and his face is mere inches away from you.

 

“I motherfucking like you a lot Tavros.” Your eyes go a bit wide because he has hardly said your name to your face and your body wracks with slight tingles from the smell of his breath as it enters your nose. It smells very familiar and in a very good way, or at least you think, it smells good.

 

“I…I…like you a lot too…Gamzee” you breath out as you lock eyes with him. He seems to be getting closer to the point to where your noses could touch. This doesn’t happen though because of other events that are about to occur.

 

He smiles an evil yet passionate smile as he bites on his bottom lip and he looks like he’s about to kiss you. You don’t try to stop him but instead you allow for him to kiss you. Your mostly virgin mouth hasn’t had too much action besides the few failed dates that you had. You haven’t been kissed by another man before but you don’t feel intimidated by it. Since you both have professed your liking for each other this didn’t seem to be bad to do.

 

Gamzee’s cell phone buzzes a few times which causes all things to pause as you two look at each other like, “shouldn’t you get that?” and “should I not get that?”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe Tavros just got over everything too fast? o.O I'm not really sure ahhh....hehehe your legit ass because I could. XD
> 
> Kudos, comments or whatever you feel like doing are appreciated muchly! <33


	13. In Which Missing Things Are Found And New Things Are Discovered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pixie is found along with some new things at two different places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I hope you enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 13 In Which Missing Things Are Found And New Things Are Discovered

 

==>  Be Karkat an hour in the past

 

You have been running around with Sollux and Kankri for quite a while and you guys still haven’t been able to find Pixie. You are really starting to worry now and you are afraid she has gotten taken by someone else or something worse than that. You keep thinking about Pixie and Nepeta’s smiling face comes into view and your brain fogs up and you can’t think straight so you stop moving. You walk over to the side of an old abandoned looking building and slouch down with your hands covering your face.

 

A few tears fall as you remember back when the two of you met, she was just opening the shop with Feferi and she saw you looking at the few animals they had. She, unlike most people, ignored your rude disposition and just smiled as you were welcomed in. She introduced herself to you and then she showed you what they will be having as soon as they get the shop a bit more ready than it was then. Ever since that day you would check up on her and occasionally the two of you would clean up the cages together. She even was able to get you to knock down your drinking (which still is a surprise to you) but now that she is gone and the only thing you have left of her is Pixie. You just have to find that dog and you have to first of course be angry because Pixie left you and then you will look at her cute face and everything will be alright.

 

You also think of Sollux and Kankri and how they both were just right there with you. They must know or have a guess that you have feelings for Nepeta because you normally aren’t so spirited and upset about something.

 

The cold wind blows as the pitter patter sound of rain starts to fall on the cement in front of you and luckily the awning on the abandoned shop is keeping you dry. Before you can think any more on any other matter your cell phone goes off twice. You pick the cell phone out of your pocket hopeful that whoever is calling you knows where your dog is.

 

“Hello” You say into your phone.

 

“KK we have found Pixie over by the old thchool building off of fifth threeth but the won’t come out from some tunnel the’th in. “

 

“Okay I’ll be right over.” You hang up and put the phone in your pocket and you start jogging over to the school building. Luckily you are on Sixth Street so it doesn’t take very long at all to get there. You hair is soaked now but you can see two figures in the distance from you and you can see the bright red and blue sunglasses shining off the partial sunlight.

 

You catch up to them immediately and you can hear Pixie barking in the long tunnel as it bounces off the walls. You look over at Kankri and he just gives you a puzzling look and shrugs his shoulders. You don’t really know what to do at this point either but you have to try something. You then walk over to the tunnel and you realize now that there isn’t any sidewalk or cement anymore and the ground is muddy. Your shoes get covered in a brown but regardless you crouch down to the pipe and you shout Pixie’s name.

 

She stopped barking which means she has at least heard you.

 

“Pixie!” You shout as you feel the anger you knew you’d feel rising in your body.

 

First there was silence and then you hear small padded feet move toward your direction. As you know it Pixie is out and has jumped on you causing you to fall on your ass and hands in the cold wet mud and rain water. You smile from ear to ear and even give off a little bit of a laugh as you pet her with eyes closed. You then settle down and you become angry. About to tell her off but you realize she has red blood all over her.

 

What the hell? This is the only thing that runs through your mind as you start searching her. Her fur is not snagged anywhere and this blood doesn’t seem to come from her. She just blinks innocently at you and you then see it. Just a few small fibers that are embedded in her wet matted fur. These fibers are unmistakably from that very jacket. You pull out your cell phone and you call the police. You aren’t sure where she was able to get that from but it all must be on the other side of the pipe.

 

You pick up Pixie as you wait for someone to pick up and you see Kankri and Sollux looking at you in confusion because you came for the dog, right? So what else could be the matter?

 

“Hello this is the Alten Police Department operator what is your emergency?”

 

“Hello, I am at Fifth Street and I have some suspicion that there is a body on the other side of a pipe I found my dog in.”

 

“Okay, we will get someone out there as soon as possible.”

 

“Thank you.” You say as the operator replies with the same and you see Sollux and Kankri doubly confused now with that statement.

 

“Look, I don’t really have time to explain, but Kankri remember the jacket you and Porrim made last Christmas?”  You say as you turn to Kankri then looking down at your phone again to get the contact out and ready.  


“Well, yes but-“

 

You cut him off short. “Then good, we will need to explain that to the police. I found some fibers clinging to Pixie and the blood on her isn’t her’s.” You say this looking at his same colored hazel eyes at your own and he immediately understands as his face shows his understanding. You press on the call icon and put the cell phone to your ear.

 

*RRiinng riiinnngg ririinnnggg*

 

Then you hear the ringing stop after a few seconds but to your surprise you are met with the voice message instead.

 

“Hey motherfucker be up and called this shit number-“ but he must have pressed end on accident because his speech is cut off and is met with loud obnoxious beep. You don’t need this right now so you clear the call and try again but you are met with the same thing. You sigh angrily and there isn’t much else to do but wait for the police to get here now and tell them what’s going on. You look up and the rain hits your face all over and you have also noticed it has since started to pick up and the sky has darkened quite a bit since before.

 

You murmur one word as you close your eyes and look back ahead.

 

“Fuck.”

 

==> ???

 

Luckily you are very near to where you need to be so you don’t worry about the whole car deal that the department normally sets up with you. You just walk over until you know you reach your point because you hear a dog barking. It must be taken aback by your presence, or at the least the noise of the rain you cause with your steps. You get close enough and then the blood. It seems to be on the dog and also on one of the people not standing in the group. You can smell it from here and you’re wondering of course how the others don’t smell it.

 

“Hello everyone, I’m Terezi Pyrope and I’m here on behalf of the police. We got a call you were saying there is a body somewhere?” You give a small smile as you fix your red glasses and you notice the smell of red on all three of the people and you are going just about nuts over this. You smell the air and they shift a bit in the rainy mud. The one with the blood stained dog is moving towards you a bit now and the blood is stronger.

 

“Yeah, well, you’re um…fuck…how are we even going to be able to see the body, which I’m sure is on the other side of that damned pipe when there isn’t any other way over there?” The man asks. You laugh to yourself as he said how you will be able to “see” the body.

 

“Well, when did you get here? As for that I’m not sure right now, but I’ll get something figured out. In the meantime, I know there is someone here. There’s a bit of blood in the air.” You say as you move a bit closer to the man who was speaking earlier and you chuckle as you whisper to him. “You know, I can’t ‘see’ this body even if we get to it.” You lean on your guiding stick which you have put behind you.

 

“Oh, sorry.” He says sounding pretty sincere or so you think. “I’m Karkat by the way and Sollux is to my left and Kankri to my right. They have been here just a few minutes after I got here so I’d say maybe twenty minutes ago if that.”

 

“Right, well Karkat I smell blood on your dog too. I doubt it’s the dog’s blood. Where is the pipe at?” You ask as you hear someone with a lisp speak up.

 

“It’th over thith way.” He says as he starts walking and you follow him and his red smelling glasses toward the pipe and you stop with Kankri and his red smelling jacket on. You then crouch down near the pipe and you feel around it and you notice that you’re small enough to fit inside so you tell them your plan.

 

“I am smaller than all of you so I’m going to go in. If I have any problems I’ll contact my unit’s commander and go from there. Thanks for cooperating. Make sure that others stay away if they wonder why there are people over here.” You hear them agree to you and you played just as you were supposed to. Don’t tell any civilians of the murders because you need to keep it secret in order to catch the criminal while they have only cause, what you know of, just two deaths. You know that if word got out the killer would want more fame and kill more than a few people but luckily they aren’t all that smart and have left many clues in each scene.

 

The tunnel is very small and you are very happy you can’t see otherwise you might be too scared to continue because from the sound of it this pipe is very long. You however start to smell the blood become more prominent but you also smell something else. That…it can’t be you would have smelled that long ago. It is your favorite smell after all, but it is mixed with large amounts of blood after all maybe that’s why you didn’t notice before. You take a large sniff and you smell another color as well. You know that color well and you make an effort to move faster in the small pipe even though you palms are starting to hurt.

 

You then notice that smell of blood, death. You’re obviously too late to save whoever is on the other side of the enormous pipe. You can however at least be sure that whoever died has left a few clues behind as a few colors other than red and brown start to swirl around.

 

You notice you’re reaching the end of the tunnel as the sounds around you start to open up and not stay so enclosed. You almost smile at this as you know this will be a good day to catch the killer. You chuckle a bit to yourself and you keep crawling toward the body. Justice will prevail, you think to yourself as you reach the end of the tunnel and the rain starts to pelt on your head again. You smell the body with all of the red and brown mixed together and you step closer and kneel down. You put on gloves and start to feel around the large jacket the body is wearing and put two fingers to the jugular of the neck. There just as suspected is no pulse.

 

Your fingers run across a gaping hole in the torso and you feel the warm blood over the gloves and you nod at this. This is definitely the killer, but it seems that this murder was taken in a much different root. As you smell around and guide your hands carefully over the body you notice the body’s legs are completely broken and from the muddy ground it has left an impression of the fall. You suspect that the body was knocked off the top of the seven story school’s roof.  You frown at this. You then smell some of the evidence nearby but you leave that alone since it is raining any items will be easy to collect in the mud. You call up your unit’s head and they tell you that there was a call on the murderer and you need to get into a car right away. You tell him you’re still at Fifth Street and ask for smaller members to head over and check out the scene.

 

***

 

You’re in the car with another member on the way to the building the call came from. You really don’t know what to make of this, but you hope it is form the murderer whom you’re trying to catch now. You just can’t help but think of how close you must be to catching the criminal now. The Circle Killer is as their nickname since all of there now three victims so far have large gaping circles in the abdomen. The rain beats on the windows as you feel the car turn.

 

==> Be Tavros a good twenty minutes in the past

 

Your stomach feels like a bag of just now popping popcorn from all of the laughing and giggling you and Gamzee has ensued after a few raps, storytelling and jokes. You feel a tear fall from your eye so you wipe it away and look over at Gamzee on the other side of the couch still holding his stomach and chuckling slightly from the last joke you told. The one with Karkat dressing as a pony because he lost the bet with the two of you. You took pictures but there is only one left because young Karkat threw and burned the other copies.

 

You two almost kissed but then you just ended up laughing so hard at the thought of kissing right at this moment. Besides after you laughed a bit nervously you really wanted Gamzee to take off his face makeup so you could take him more seriously. This also was a plan of yours so you could see his handsome face better without all of the makeup cover up his beauty.

 

“Gamzee I’m going to get a drink, do you mind if I pop the popcorn while you get the movie ready?” you ask as you start walking into the small kitchen. Your voice must not have carried so you call for him again. “Gamzee, mind if I go ahead and get the popcorn and drinks ready while you get the movie?”

  
“Sure thing brother. Honk.” He replies gracefully from the other room and you hear his feet padding and his room door open. You smile to yourself as you then look in the fridge, see it is a bit grimy from misuse and you see two bottles of Faygo left so you grab those and start looking for popcorn.

 

“Gamzee where’s your popcorn?” You ask as you come into the living room and set the Faygo bottles down next to each other on the middle cushion of the couch.

 

“Motherfu…” Is all you hear as he comes out half hopping on one foot with a rubber snake dangling on the foot lifted in the air. He has the Peter Pan disc in one hand and his other close to his foot about to grab the snake. After he grabs it and tosses it into his room his eyes roam up and meet yours and he blushes furiously with embarrassment. He hurriedly closes his bedroom door and turns around and walks toward you, getting pretty close to your personal space and he has his signature smile on. “Motherfucking everywhere in the cabinets. Popcorn is popped with miracles, and it be legit to not have some of that shit.” He says and his icy eyes look into yours for a second before his lids close and he walks off to the couch and crashes.

 

You just laugh a bit at his behavior and you go back and find the last cabinet indeed has been stashed full of popcorn. So much popcorn that your head is met with a few boxes and bags that then hit the floor. “Found them!” You shout over all of them falling and you hear your clown friend chuckling with a mystical tone mixed in there. You put the bags back as carefully and skillfully so they don’t fall out as you can and put the bag in the microwave. It has a turn dial and you just snicker at the older appliance as you turn it to three minutes.

 

You turn around and look around the small kitchen area and you notice a small brown package addressed to your best bro.

 

“Gamzee what is this package?” You ask as you move towards it. As you’re about to put your fingers on it you hear the popcorn pop and your tense body jumps at the sound. Next thing you know you turn around and Gamzee is right behind you. His hair in his face and his eyes are a dull blue color now and they are looking slightly down at you (not really because you’re about the same height) and he laughs lowly.

 

“Don’t motherfucking up and knew what it’s about. Just come here from my neighbor lady.” He smiles as his arm moves so close to your face, his claw like finger nails just missing past your neck and the package moves towards him now. The dark aura that had surrounded his face has now disappeared as he looks at it and he tears it open messily. He cuts the tape off with his nails and there is a white stained with red clothe all around the box.

 

Gamzee sniffs the air and he blinks at the box not sure if he should move the cloth. You can smell something foul and metallic from the box. Gamzee however moves the cloth and it drapes over the sides of the box. He gasps as he lets the box fall and as it bangs on the ground you see two white bloody balls lift slightly and fall back in. Your best bro is now holding his hands over his mouth and looking at you with wider eyes than even the day you saw him in police custody.

 

You look down at the box and lean forward to see two brown eyes looking back at you. Blood running from and around them and you hold your mouth as you step back and bang into the cabinet. You hear the beep of the microwave go off and the two of you jump and Gamzee moves over next to you in some sort of misunderstanding and scared confusion. He runs into you. Or rather, he should have ran into you but his body just goes through you and he hits the wall next to where you are.

 

You are shocked at this and you take a few steps back in disbelief. You didn’t even feel any contact except for this cold chill run through you. You look at your hands and then when your eyes raise you see Gamzee is just as freaked out checking to make sure that he had hit the cabinet and not you.

 

“Wh…what is going on Gamzee?” you say in a very scared tone and you feel tears start to rise in your eyes.  You don’t want to be…whatever this is…this ghostly form…and those eyes…they’re your eyes…what is going on??

 

“Fuck…Tavros.” Your eyes spark up as you hear his low voice use that rare word, your name. “We will get this motherfucking strict shit checked out.” He has a small frown on his face as he collects himself and he walks into the living room noticing only his phone. He sees that Karkat has called twice and he calls him back.

 

“Motherfucking Tavros is invisible or some shit brother and his eyes be laid down on the ground. This shit ain’t bitchtits okay.” He nods and then says okay and hangs up the phone and he looks back at you. He walks over to you and he puts up his hand with his now more open eyes looking at yours. He then has a small smile and his tries to put his fingers to your cheek but you only feel a small light prickle of cold and his hand goes through. “It’s gonna be okay like nobody knows strict okay Tavros.” He says with a lower voice as he puts his hand down and looks at you with just as much confusion as your face must be showing to him.

 

“It’s okay…Gamzee…I know we’ll get this figured out. I know something…uh must have gone on and we’ll figure it out…” you feel tears fall and once again you feel the same cold prickle across your cheek.

 

“Sorry brother, I can’t…got the streams running off your face.” He says with a small chuckle but it sounds hurt. You now wish you could feel his hand on your cheek to wipe away your tears. You want to be able to feel his presence on your skin. You look up at him and his eyes are flooded with tears too but he still has a small smile on his clowned up face. You smile a small little smile and you walk closer to him. Even though you can’t really feel him and he can’t feel you, you get this enormous feeling of warmth just by being close to him. You walk over until you feel the prickling cold all over your front and you lay your head in a position that if you could be solid would be his shoulder. You feel two long cold prickles appear one around the small of your back and the over your shoulders and you hear Gamzee shooshing you as you feel tears fall.

 

What has been your existence the whole time then? Why are you still here? Why are you some sort of ghost? This and more are all going through your head as you best bro, no, your flush crush tries to hold you.

 

There is silence for a good while before someone speaks up and it isn’t you.

 

Gamzee speaks in a broken low almost tired voice which you have not heard in a long time. You swear you hear tears being choked back as he talks to you. “Our motherfucker said….he…found your body…well his bark beast did and the cops are coming up and over to check out the loud box on the floor…”

 

You just nod unable to say anything more at this point and you struggle to have someone comfort you, for the voice to be there right where he is, but for you to not feel his him against you. You feel just the cold tingling in his body’s place. You frown and you feel a few more tears fall and you think you hear his tears fall too.

 

***

 

Within just a few short minutes, faster than ever expected from the two of you, you both hear the frail door being rapped upon and you both jump. You both move away from each other and as you see Gamzee just standing there unsure of how to move and what is going on exactly you move toward the door.

 

After Gamzee moves over and you step out of the way he opens the door. You see a woman with red glasses on her face and a large pointy toothed smile look somewhat in your direction. You notice she is carrying a long white stick stick with her and you aren’t sure what to say. That’s okay however because she speaks first in her intelligent yet amused tomboy voice.

 

“I’m Terezi Pyrope, I’m sure Gamzee Makara was told by Karkat that I was going to be here.” She then sniffs  a bit and you notice she is sniffing in your direction. “No need to cry if you’re thinking a blind girl can’t figure things out. I definitely can. Do you mind if I come in?” She asks moving over and sort of just letting herself in.

 

She then smells the room and immediately goes into the kitchen. You notice that Gamzee had an eye on her but just a small uncertain gaze on her. You then look over at her and she is carrying the box and comes back to you. Sort of.

 

“I see these are your eyes correct?” She says not sure now of where to look at you since she can’t smell you.

 

“Yes those are my…eyes…somehow.” You say in disbelief still of this whole incident.

  
“Well, I don’t know what to say about your state, ghost buddy, but I can say this, there is evidence here, more than we have had before, I can just smell it. We will nab the killer for sure so don’t keep your thoughts on that. By the smell of it the eyes were taken out recently but the shirt smells of dry old blood of a few weeks. Oh yes, we will also call if we have further questions.” She smiles and nods as she says her thanks and walks out of the room closing the door behind her.

 

You then are standing on the wood floor looking over at Gamzee whose face is half hidden by hair and he just gives a small lop sided smile and walks into his room’s black atmosphere. You aren’t sure what to do at this point so you follow him into his room. You stop a bit after you feel a tingley feeling close to your toes and you can see from the moonlight of his dark purple curtains that he is laying down on his bed curled up in blankets. You also hear the ominous sound of the rain beating steadily against Gamzee’s window.

 

You frown as your eyes get more adjusted to the darkness and you then walk over toward Gamzee lying down. You notice horn piles in the large room, clothing piles, even unfortunately, juggling pins scattered across the room. You haven’t been in his room but it’s such a mess. Pie tins, green stains on the white carpet, carnival memorabilia, even clown posters on the walls. You make it to the edge of the bed and sit down closest to his feet and you put a hand on his feet. He must have heard you come in somehow and he looks at you with matted hair sticking to his face. His face is smeared of tears and sadness and you can almost see his entire face through the darkness. You smile a bit and he smiles a bit. He moves a hand from under his pillow and pats the side of the bed next to him.

 

You make your way over to that side of the bed and with not much what else to do at this time you turn your head and look at him. You made sure to leave a bit of room from the two of you but he quickly makes up for that room and scoots closer to you. Still on his side he wraps and arm around you and you scoot closer to him. You feel the same cold tingles on the side of your arm and legs and you bite you lip and look at him. He has already gone asleep now and you take your free arm and put a hand to his face and you try to move his hair so you can see his face better, but to no avail.

 

You lay your hand down and you let out a stressed breath before you turn your head so you’re looking at his ceiling. You wish you could both feel each other as if you both were alive. You hope they find out who killed you soon. You frown and you look over at sleeping Gamzee who has his mouth open slightly and he is drooling a bit but it was pretty cute, at least to you it was. You feel this warmth run through your body and you feel your heart, or what you think was still your heart pound harder and faster in your chest. You can’t help but smile at Gamzee.

 

***

  
You continue to watch him sleep until you notice the sun is starting to rise and the rain which you heard earlier through the window has suddenly stopped. You then close your eyes and you feel the sleep hit you all at once as you are suddenly dreaming.

 

The dream is the same as the others. You are falling, falling in the rain, then a loud bam sound is hear. You feel the warmth, assuming it’s your blood, all around you. You then start to feel like you have no air around you anymore as you try to gather a breath but you can’t no matter what you do. Your vision starts to get hazy and you then hear some sort of noise in the background. Talking? No, it wasn’t voices, it was…barking? Like a dog barking at you? You wonder what the hell a barking noise could be. You think it’s a dog though because it nuzzles up close to you and you feel a cold nuzzle against your now getting cold hand. Your brown eyes blink a few times and you notice a fleeting figure to your left. You struggle but you see the figure is wearing an over jacket and jeans. You see the pattern of the jacket and realize who it is immediately. You try to shout out their name but you can’t even open your mouth now. You just lay there as your eyes go blurry and you eventually close your eyes.

 

You feel all strength taken from you. You feel this new sensation however from your side. It’s a cold tingling, much like the one you felt before going to sleep. Gamzee…You smile at this and you know you love him. You know after everything he has always been there for you. You need to say it now when you both wake up before it’s too late. You don’t know how much longer you’re staying nor why you’re still here so you better do it when you wake. You hope you wake soon because you probably don’t have much time now that your best friends and your lover (which you say because you are pretty sure he still loves you even after everything that has happened) know you’re dead.

 

==> Be Terezi

 

You arrive at the office and you go down the elevator directly from the left of the opening doors and you head down to the basement where the team for the killer is. You hear others speaking as you walk down the hallway with the box in hand. You hadn’t bothered to take the time to cover up the box, you had gloves on still and the rain wasn’t going to affect the box. You walk up to the chief’s desk and lay down the box. Before he can get a word in you tell him this, “I was over at the crime scene as you know and I’m sure the team has been able to get some evidence from the scene. I however smell more evidence in this box. Now be careful, there is something not of a weak stomach that some of the investigators have so it’s best to just take this down to the lab. I need to go and talk to Tyler about the new evidence we have collected.”

 

You don’t stop and let him speak you just walk out with one mission on your mind. To capture the killer and to have them sentenced. For the reign of terror to end before it goes full scale multi murder. You walk down the hall and into the last door on the left and you open up and hear someone speaking who then stops as they see you.

 

The gruff older voice asks, “What did you get from the apartment call?”

 

“Someone’s or actually the victim’s eyeballs. They were detached from the body and sent in the box. I don’t really understand why it was sent to Gamzee Makara unless he has relations with either the killer or the victim.” You say with a small sneer hoping that Gamzee will next time be caught for something instead of his father giving the ‘I own most of the police anyways so he is free to go’ card.

 

You hear Tyler walk over to his desk and starts to type away. The lab has already sent a few things in. It seems to be just as you predicted, it is a blue colored jacket material. They are analyzing where the jacket could be bought right now.” He spews the information. You pull out a coin and flip it and catch it over and over in thought.

 

“They won’t find the dye anywhere in the states. They won’t find the fabric either. She liked to make her own things for her special rare species of spider webs.” You say with a grim tone.

 

“Well…yes…they haven’t yet…and it is….” He stops his sentence and wheels over to you. “How do you know this Terezi?” he asks with true curiosity.

 

“Easy, we have been playing this game for many years, but it’s about to end.” You flip the coin and you feel the cut in the heads. It will all end soon. You put the coin back and just as you do Tyler says he has received an email from the FBI stating they know where the murderer’s room is. They are going to take the police and FBI swat team and barge in and take the murderer to prison. You laugh almost evilly and you make your way to the hallway with Tyler asking you where you’re going behind you in his room.

 

You make your way to the chief’s room and he says thanks for the box with some grim sound and you smile. “Can I be in the swat squad? You know I am trained to do this. I must see this murderer stopped.” You think, you’ve been waiting a long time for this and you aren’t about to miss the opportunity. The chief nods and send you back up with a few others form the murderer team. You then get suited up in the station and await the departure for the capture squad truck to appear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to take the last endings and put them in this last chapter instead of this one. This is so you can take a break since this is the longest chapter I believe for this story.


	14. Ending(s)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> These are the different ending(s) for the main characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you for sticking with this and I hope you like the end.

**~Endings~**

 

==> Be Tavros a few hours after

 

You awake with Gamzee already up and you both sit down and have breakfast. You notice all of the features of his face due to the lack of makeup and you can’t help but smile. You feel yourself wanting to touch his face even though you can’t. However you just ignore the want and eat breakfast. Neither of you talk but you notice he has something in his hand. You didn’t really worry about work either, since you’re dead and all now. Instead, after breakfast you tell Gamzee to sit down with you on the couch.

 

***

You’re waiting for Gamzee to sit down on the couch and once he does you start off with a smile and ask him to pay close attention because you’ll only say it once. His eyes meet yours and his hand stops fiddling with the thing they are holding.

 

“Gamzee, I uh…realized…I really like _like_ you…” you say with an embarrassed look on your face and you feel the blush rise everywhere. You see Gamzee smile his smile and his eyes brighten a bit but he doesn’t do much beyond that, to your surprise he says something different.

 

“I know Tavros. I could up and telled you felt the same way I have for so motherfucking long. I am really legitly stoked brother.” He moves his eyes from yours and he opens his palm and hold out a golden ring. “This motherfuck has been in the Makara’s family for…shit…too fucking long.” He says looking at it then at you. “I thought I’d give it to you brother, but Karkat…he lost his kittygirl to my murderin hand. That ain’t okay...I am going to give this miraculous little thing to him. Hope ye aren’t too upset at me.” He says look at you with sad eyes but you completely understand. You are a bit upset that Gamzee doesn’t lean in to kiss you, if he could that is, but you wanted to feel his warmth around you. This is dismissed however as Karkat is your best friend and you wanted him to be happy and for Nepeta to come back. Besides, you can always try and kiss and be held by Gamzee anytime now that your true feelings are out.

 

“No, I knew he liked Nepeta for a long time and I want him to be happy. Besides, I’m still here sort of, right? I think that is more than what Karkat has right now and he seemed so upset when I last talked to him. Please give it to him. I have to ask though, what does it do?” Your eyes move to the sparkling ring, it was beautiful and it had a pure aura about it.

 

“Heals motherfuckers and gives them another change at life my brother. It is wicked.” He says with a chuckle and he puts the ring in his jacket that is laying on the back of the couch. He gets up and puts his jacket on. “I am going to give it to the motherfucker now. You’re more than welcome to up and go with this clown.”

 

“Uh…sure…” you say as you two get everything on that is needed for the cold and you head out.

 

***

 

*Brrinng riinng*

 

The doorbell is followed by a grumpy Karkat who looks like he hasn’t slept in a good long while staring at you. Gamzee hold out the ring and tells Karkat what he has to do in order for it work and he apologizes quite a bit in just a few short minutes. Karkat offers Gamzee to come in, he must not notice you anymore, but Gamzee refuses and he thanks Karkat and you two walk out of the apartment hand in hand. You tell Gamzee you’re happy with him and he says the same back to you but he still has sad eyes which match his somewhat sad smile. You two get on the bus on the way back to Gamzee’s still holding hands and enjoying each other’s company even though people looked at Gamzee for talking and taking two seats up for no one.

 

==> Be Terezi

 

You are in the vehicle and you make your way up to the top of the stairs with others dressed in similar fashion of protection. You snarl in laughter lowly as you make you way up lowly. You then listen to the others telling what everyone needed to do and you being with the FBI swat team since you were more trained than regular police, your group went first. You headed in with tear gas around, luckily you had a mask and you could still smell the faint blue color swirling around. There was blood in the mix though and once you all got to the body Vriska was already dead with a circle through her torso, said one of the leaders of your group. You frown, you were sure it was Vriska Serket who did all of the killings…but the eyes balls was something new. You knew she must have just killed Tavros Nitram, you thought you heard the announcer of the news say earlier, and not the others. You frown in great frustration as Vriska wasn’t the killer. You’ll just have to keep searching then. More clues and killings are bound to happen.

 

==> Be Karkat

This damn ring has been in your pocket for the past few hours and you aren’t really sure this will work. Gamzee looked out of it when he handed it to you, but you thought you might as well fucking try anyways. That’s how you got to the city graveyard. Luckily you don’t have to do anything too nasty. You pull out the ring, run it along your fingers before setting it down on the headstone. You wait for a few minutes and even sit down on the ground staring at the headstone. Nothing. You frown and in anger you walk off. There is a body that has landed on your back and your fall down on the ground about ready to kick their ass but you hear the familiar laugh. No fucking way. You turn over on you back and you see Nepeta hands on her knees laughing at you with the ring shining in the sun on her finger. You jump up and you laugh and cry holding her. She doesn’t know what to do but just lets you hold her. You kiss her head and tell her how much you miss her. She looks up at you as you let her go and you kiss her gently on the lips. Oh how you’ve missed her.

 

==> Be Gamzee

  
The people on the bus are talking about something but you never pay attention anyways. You talk to Tavros as you always have, smiling and laughing not regretting anything that you have done. You hope that Karkat and Nepeta get along well and you just hold Tavros’ head in yours and listen to him speak. Before you know it you hear murmurs which grow into loud voices. You look back at Tavros after refocusing and he has fear in his eyes and he isn’t looking at you. He’s looking at the front of the bus and he starts screaming with others. You look just as a huge jackknifed semi is coming towards the bus and before you can scream you are all hit with an enormous amount of force from the bus trying to stop and the trailer kill all of you on impact.

 

You feel the small burns and the huge crash hit your skull and your body being crushed, but just for a second then it’s over. You feel warmth and you hear giggling and you look up and you see Tavros is standing in front of you looking down at you. Everything around him is white and he looks so happy. You get up and you notice wings on him, you have them too and you smile. Motherfucking miracles. Now, you make your move, before he can do anything you grab his chin and kiss him passionately. Everything will now be okay and you‘re glad you can feel his warmth against your now warmer but still cold skin forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this! <3 I was kind of nervous to put this up actually! If there are any questions you can shoot me a message or comment and I will try to answer them the best I can. Thanks again! X'D
> 
> Haha random shout out to me, tomorrow is my birthday! XD


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